Berries, berries, and more berries!

[skeeter9]

A friend and I drove to Watsonville yesterday and picked 40 pounds of Olallieberries and Boysenberries. I usually buy them fresh at one of the fruit stands around here, but they are expensive and we needed to get away, so we picked our own for $2 a pound and hauled them home. This morning I got up and made boysenberry jelly (and pomagranate jelly, but that's another story). Then I made an olallieberry cobbler this afternoon. The rest are going in the freezer for future use. What I learned from this is that I really, really need to plant my own berry vines!!! I could eat berries all year 'round and never get tired of them!!!

 

[digitS']

Skeeter, I had to go straight to Wikipedia and look up: Olallieberry (click)

Wow! Such complexity to berry breeding!

Maybe they will settle down a little and work to develop varieties that might grow well in this berry-challenged part of the world. About the only ones that I know about here are the raspberry and the strawberry. I feel real lucky that DW finally realized the value of strawberries and allowed a small planting of them. Those things should be in just about every backyard. There are ones that are suitable just about everywhere!
I hope you find just the right berries for your garden :tools.

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

Sounds like quite a haul, 40 pounds of berries! Yumm...I think you need to show us a pic Skeeter.
Do you grow your pomegranates? We ate them a lot growing up, our fingers were always stained.... now I can only buy the juice, and it's spendy!

 

[Carol Dee]

That is a LOT of berries. Years ago we used to pick our own blueberries and strawberries. Finally tried to grow our own. No luck with the blue berries and finally getting a nice patch of strawberries. Yesterday I put up a batch of wild black berry jam, yummy.

 

[skeeter9]

Steve, I forget that Olallieberries aren't all that well-known. They have been grown here in CA for a long time and they are very good. As for strawberries, I don't need to use garden space to grow them because we have tons of strawberry farms down in the valley (mostly grown by Hmong immigrants). They are soooo good and inexpensive, so we get all we want during berry season without having to grow them ourselves. We have wild blackberry bushes all over up here in the hills (of course, none of them are on our property ), so I'm sure I can come up with something that will work here. That gives me a good excuse to go to the nursery and see what they recommend!

Thistlebloom, I would love to post pics, but my darned camera has become possessed. I did give some of the berres to my daughter and a friend, but I still have plenty. I know what you mean about the "pomegranate fingers"!!! I've had them many times myself. We don't grow our own, but they are grown all over the place around here, so we can get them easily. The best part is, there is a farm in the valley that grows them and juices them, then sells the juice very reasonably, so jelly-making is super-easy! Yum!

Carol, wild blackberry jam is so amazing! You just can't get that flavor from nursery stock!! Do you have them on your property or did you go somewhere to pick them?

 

[Carol Dee]

Skeeter, we live in town and the yard is rather small. About 12 years ago we bought 2 acres on what was an old landfill. Unable to put a well down so no house will go there. It is about 1 1/2 miles to the east of us. We have a very big garden, 2 sheds, a pad for the camper, apple trees, nut trees, grape vines, peach trees and flower beds. Plus the wild stuff, mulberries, black berries and lots of POSION IVY. It is handy and the only problem with it is in dry weather and we have to carry water to garden. We have rain barrels off both sheds. That helps.

 

[lesa]

I had never heard of those berries, either! I am starting a red raspberry patch. I had a few plants, from a couple seasons ago-and we planted 20 or so, this year. I love the idea of perennial fruits. Added a plum and two apple trees this spring, too....

 

[skeeter9]

That sounds really nice, Carol. I'm sure anybody living near your land is happy to have your garden to look at instead of a landfill! Hauling water is definitely a pain in the patootie, but at least you don't have far to go. Do you have a water truck, or do you use the big water tanks you can put in the bed of your truck?

Lesa, we planted a couple of apple trees this year, too. Can't wait until they are old enough to bear lots of fruit! 20 raspberry plants??? That seems like a lot, but what do I know - I'm definitely a berry beginner!! I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I want at least boysenberries and blackberries. I'd really like raspberries, too . . . I wonder if cattle will eat the bushes????

 

[Carol Dee]

Skeeter by the time we aquired the land it no longer looked like a landfill. Totally overgrown, though. We have water barrels under the shed eves. And a 150 gallon barrel on a small wagon if we hae to get water from the house. We have a hose running from eves into it also. But no rain and they are getting low. Sure hope we get rain before we have to resort to that.

 

[skeeter9]

Gosh, Carol, that would never work here as our summers are very long, hot, and dry. It must be a little nerve-wracking waiting for the rain like that! Hope you get a storm by the time you need it.