Archive for the 'Raspberries' Category

Mid-Summer Fruit

We grow over a dozen different kinds of fruit trees and berries in our yard, including apricots, apples, figs, plums, pears, pluots, peaches, cherries, oranges, blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. Not all of our fruit trees produce fruit every year, and each type of fruit has a limited season. But because we have so many fruits, we typically have fruit to eat from our yard from May through September. Most of the fruit production occurs in our yard in mid-summer, so we have an abundance of fruit in the months of July and August.

This week, I have been harvesting Elephant Heart plums from our multi-grafted plum tree, shown in the photo below. The skin of these plums can be quite sour, at least until the fruit is almost mushy, but the pulp has a nice flavor.

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Our small Bartlett pear tree is loaded with at least 100 pears this year (photos of it below). I have picked over 30 pears from it already, but I’ve not eaten any of them yet. Pears are harvested while still green and unripe. They are ready to harvest if the fruit separates from the branch easily when the fruit is lifted by hand into a horizontal position. The pears from this tree have been exquisite in past years. Although, our tree typically only produces pears every other year.

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I am also harvesting Flavor King and Dapple Dandy pluots from our multi-grafted pluot tree. The first photo below is Flavor King (purple fruit), and the second photo is Dapple Dandy (pink fruit). I’m supporting the thin branches of this small tree with tomato cages, because there is too much fruit even after I thinned them. Also, the fruit is large (larger than last year’s harvest). I also have to protect them and my other fruit with netting.

Our pluot tree is one of my favorite fruit trees. Its fruits are delicious. Flavor King is perhaps one of the tastiest fruits I have eaten, even though plums in general are not my favorite fruit. Each of the 4 pluot varieties on our tree is unique in terms of its color, flavor, ripening time, and keeping quality. The other two varieties are Flavor Queen and Flavor Supreme. Dapple Dandy is a good variety, because it produces a lot of fruit, and the fruit holds well on the tree for several weeks.

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We also have a Caroline red raspberry plant that is growing in a large pot. Its canes are full of luscious looking raspberries right now, as shown in the next photo below. Unfortunately, our raspberries are not edible, because the insides of the berries are full of insect larvae that resemble very small white worms. Nearly all of the berries I have picked in the past week are full of the worms, and it’s not practical to remove them all. Although they may not be harmful if consumed, they are not appetizing.

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July 29 2013 | Pears and Plums and Pluots and Raspberries | Comments Off on Mid-Summer Fruit

Golden Raspberries

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These are photos of my Anne rasberry bush. I purchased it as a bare root plant from an online mail order website about three years ago. I am growing it in a pot, because raspberries can spread quickly when grown in the ground. So far, it has taken well to the pot. It has produced berries every year. It even produced a few berries in its first growing season. I support the raspberry canes with chicken wire and a tomato cage. Because the canes need to be pruned each winter, I don’t think it’s worth the effort to tie the canes to a trellis.

Anne is an everbearing raspberry that is supposed to produce a first crop of berries in early summer and a second crop of berries in late summer into fall. Last year, I harvested a few berries in late June and early July, and larger crop mainly in August. This year, its first crop of raspberries starting ripening in late May. I have been harvesting golden raspberries every few days for the past two weeks now.

I really enjoy the taste of these raspberries. They have a nice sweet-tart flavor. They are less tart than red rasberries. The only problem I’ve had with this plant is insects eating some of the leaves and berries. I haven’t been able to determine what type of insect it is yet, and I don’t want to spray the plant while it has berries on it.

I have read that raspberries prefer climates that have slowly warming temperatures in the springtime. We have that climate here, where highs are still mainly in the 70s, and it has been mild since early March. I’ve noticed that the leaves of this raspberry plant can look burnt after a heatwave. I have it now growing in a spot that gets morning sun and afternoon shade after about 1 pm, and it seems to like that degree of exposure better than full sun all day long.

June 05 2013 | Raspberries | Comments Off on Golden Raspberries