Berries

[potter]

I've been reading so many posts here about beans, potatoes, corn,toms..etc. and do find it very interesting indeed...but there is something I've been wondering..do you lot on other side of the 'pond' grow much berries?
Here in uk I grow black-, red- & green currants, gooseberries, raspberries, blue berries, alpine& garden strawberries, logan berries, blackberries etc..there is number of wild berries that I grow too but those listed are the norm that you find commonly on almost every veg plot.
I think I must eat more home grown berries and fruit than I do veg.
Or is it that you just don't talk about it much..?..just curious.. ;D

[oxbowfarm]

Currants are not widely grown in the US, not sure about Canada. I have gooseberries that I like very much and we also have several black currant bushes planted by the previous owner. Can't say that I actually do anything with the black currants, maybe an acquired taste? They taste really reminiscent of pine resin to me.

We also have a few raspberries for home use. Our blueberry planting did not thrive, I am hoping to give that one another shot soon.

We grow strawberries for market in the field in rotation with the rest of our market vegetables.

[MikeH]

Raspberries, everbearing raspberries, golden everbearing raspberries, blackberries (with the most lethal thorns I've ever seen), thornless blackberries, wild black currants, black currants, wild gooseberries, Pixwell Green and Hannomaki Red gooseberries, everbearing strawberries, wild strawberries, wild raspberries, blackcaps, highbush cranberry, elderberry, haskap and honeyberry, serviceberry, goji, tayberry.

Of the lot (not everything has fruited yet), the best fresh picked are the thornless blackberries when they are so ripe that they are on the verge of dropping and the golden everbearing raspberries picked in late October when they also are so ripe that they are on the verge of dropping. The best jelly has come from the blackcaps.

[khoomeizhi]

we're in a good place for blueberries (fair amount of wild ones in the woods), so we've had great luck (and harvests) from the cultivated kind. raspberries (red and black), gooseberries (wild and cultivated), strawberries (alpine and june bearing), honeyberries, lots of local wild blackberries (and some of their easier-to-get-along-with thornless friends, elderberry, serviceberry, sea buckthorn...and a couple of decent eleagnus varieties...

dunno, i guess i don't talk about it much?

[potter]

Ahh..so you do do them...Now I know..
Another question then...
Is there generally lot of varieties available per type of fruit..?
For example, we have dozens of different named varieties of gooseberries.
And..have you got much US or Canadian bred varieties?..or are they mainly foreign origin.
I recocnize the Hinnonmaki red gooseberry..that's Finnish bred variety.
In UK there is not much wild raspberries about..its all wild blackberries here. But in northern Europe wild raspberries are the norm.

[khoomeizhi]

i forgot wineberries.

american native gooseberries are more resistant to mildew, so a fair amount of breeding has been done with trying to get some of those genetics into european berries, which are generally bigger.

but yes, in general, lots of named varieties. with a few exceptions (not that many named serviceberry cultivars, for instance).

[turtleheart]

wild i have strawberries, black raspberries, red, white, and marbled mulberries, wild black cherry, blackberries (i hate them and kill them they take over the world), ground cherry species, elderberries, grapes, black nightshade,

planted fruits here are blueberries (reintroduced wild), apple, pear, tomato.

thats all i got. i dont bother planting something thats wild, i just propagate what is here.

[turtleheart]

wineberries grow in the city here, only where it was strip mined a century ago.

if someone wants seed i can save them come summer.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I grow day neutral strawberries in the field: A row/bed about 100 feet long. They grow directly in the ground without plastic or hilling.

I grow raspberries in a permaculture garden under the grapes and fruit tree canopy. There are also June bearing strawberries in this garden, but they don't do well.

Many years ago I planted some of the northern kiwi varieties, but they don't bloom in my garden.

[traab]

There is increasing interest in small fruits and berries with the health benefits being recognized along with the flavor. Many of our raspberries are from European genetic origin but have been breed for many growing conditions so there are many varieties. We have wild raspberries that have great flavor but have not been the base of our varieties. My flavor favorite is the black cap a wild purple raspberry bearing in summer. The flavor has many fruit tones. I found that they bear better with cultivation. Sadly these can carry viruses that can spread to the commercial varieties so always a caution. I kept bushes growing wild in my garden and haven't yet noticed decline in my cultivated raspberries. They bear for a few weeks in summer. Two commercial purple varieties are enjoyed but less flavor than the wild black cap yet coming in a week later. Great flavor in their own standing.
I am so happy to find the 'Caroline' red raspberry and the 'Polana' red raspberries these fall bearing varieties compliment each other in my small planting and provide berries from summer to frost with a side dressing.
Strawberries have always been popular. My favorite older varieties had intense flavor.
The musk strawberry is a species from Eurasia that I am establishing in a tiny patch and hope to give more attention too. It was a common type before the modern strawberry and was known for fragrance and taste. I had a single plant which spread and persisted for 20 years but lacked a pollinator! I got a start from a seed saver of 3 varieties. Fortunately a few supply them and I was able to sent material to one of them. These plants bear heaviest at three years so I will wait and see. I saved last years few fruits and am growing out (fingers crossed-for good luck) this Spring. I understand the breeder of Caroline raspberry may release or may have a commercial variety with musk strawberry genes breed in.
Our wild strawberries can bear better with some cultivation and are intensely flavorful. Some of these are the base of modern strawberries and other wild species have been bred in.
Blueberry varieties are available in high bush and low bush. The best to my taste are still the wild ones.

Potter thanks for opening this discussion!

[oxbowfarm]

I believe one of the reasons that currants and gooseberries are less popular here is that they were illegal to grow in a lot of states due to them being a host for the White Pine Blister Rust organism (fungi ?) I don't believe it was at the level of "jack booted thugs beating down your door" for growing them, but I don't think they were legal to sell planting stock, fruit etc.

[blueadzuki]

We have a few blueberries (that we planted) and a lot of wineberries (that are basically a weed there). There was a large blackberry or black rasberry stand near us, but it got taken down when the new house was added. Just as well, they were really crappy berries, tiny and all seeds no flesh (there was another blackberry around that produced excellent berries, but as that one was more of a plant than a shrub (it basically trailed down a big rock on our neighbors property) we are talking 2-3 berries per year, max) we tried planting our own blackberries, but they also got out of control and had to be removed (actually were still taking out the odd shoot and that was 5-6 years ago) there are (or were) also 1-2 feral red currant bushes by one of our neighbors properties. They are on the wrong side of the fence (not our neighbors fence, the fence that divides thier property from the property belonging to the hospital) to really harvest (and that fence has no holes since the last repair job, but you can sometimes get a little fruit by reaching through the links. I also have a small patch of alpine stawberries (white) and some other stawberries, maybe (that is I know there are other stawberries we have planted, but since most of the others were planted by my sister, I don't really know which are eating stawberries and which are ornamental. Plus, we have Indian stawberries as a weed here as well, so there is a lot of unwarranted exitement over plants that show up spontaneously. LOVE that little pot of alpines. Not only do they always bear (some sweat bees decided to set up hive directly below them, so pollination is near 100%) but being cold loving I tend to get some fruit in very early spring (before anyhing else has really started) and some in Fall around Thanksgiving (so I still have fresh from the garden fruit even then) And one or two of our property's trees are chokecherries (not that those are particularly edible, or acessible) I'm trying to add plums (mostly seed grown greengages, but hopefully there are also some wild plum pits I picked up in colledge mixed in there, yellow sorb, a few more peaches (besides my little purple leafed one). etc.

[12540dumont]

I have a 50 foot bed of Mara des Bois Strawberries. A 50' row of Himalayan Blackberries, which I agree with Turtle....what possessed me? thorns, brambles, ouch! coming up in the artichokes, ripping my pants.

I also have blueberries. Which never go to the CSA, but directly into my mouth.

I'd love to have more berries, but the issue is getting around the thorns, and getting around to picking them.

I love the things dearly and would like more kinds, but something easier to deal with would be lovely. I dream of berries, but mostly in pie.

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[traab]

A few cranberries grow in a bog-swamp in town in the sphagnum moss as well our family enjoys picking trips to a nearby Island for cranberries in the swampy hollows between the sand dunes. Most years the wild plums 1" (2.5cm) are a great food, strong for some. Yes I extract all the seeds by hand to get them started. Beach plums have been collected from Maine (with permit) and through as far South as they grow to trial material for commercial beach plum orchards. Univ. Mass has been involved with this www.beachplum.cornell.edu/bpguide.pdf Until then saving seeds is the way ...and more fun. So far some bushes are tall and others low to the ground.
Then the wild grapes Vitus lumbrusca (sp.) are like concords and each one unique. Lazily I grind and freeze these for winter preparations. Yes I save and scatter seeds these too. A few purchased vines have not produced yet.
Chokecherries with a shade of sweetening make a great sauce or diluted a juice.
I have also brought in a very few Blueberries from the wild from older plants where a small side shoot with roots allows the main plant to remain. I have had trouble with the lowbush varieties and have a 4 " (10cm) early colony I would like to start in the garden. Any ideas?
I encourage care with wild plants to leave the populations strong.
Cranberries need moisture but not a bog some one reading must be growing them.
Schwartzbeeren a black nightshade has been grown in our family for hundreds of years. As with other annual berries a set of recipes and growing practices go with cultures. I garden to have these -okay and everything else- as I can not buy them or the seeds. They are in the family. I would like to know the food traditions of the different flavored chichiquelite of Africa, introduced to Mexico. A favorite use is in a fruit filled dumpling, a cheese cake yeast bread, but I'm lazy so I go with a flour thickened slightly sweetened sauce over yogurt. If you have these from Germans from Russia, the Volga region PM me as I am gathering what I can before generations moving and dropping gardening loose the seeds all together.

[olddog]

We have had good luck with boysenberries, and olallieberries, which both taste wonderful, and strawberries, and red raspberries.
The blackberries do not taste as good, and are very thorny, as some of you mentioned.