Good news! My honeyberries performed better than expected this year and I definitely achieved my goal of "more than eight berries". For accuracy, there was not more than 80- but for three year old bushes, I think it's a sign of things to come. The bush that is located in the sun had sweet berries- similar flavour to huckleberries from my childhood- on Sunday, July2. The other bushes will be ready to pick by this weekend. And by then-- hurray- the saskatoons and raspberries should be just about ready. We've got a bumper crop of Strawberries this year too. Bowls of them are coming from the large strawberry plants. The alpines are only just beginning to flower for harvest, I'm going to guess in August... anybody have an idea of a realistic harvest date on those?
From the square foot gardens, lettuce and peas are producing like crazy. I've never had great luck with lettuce, but this year I'm giving it away. I've four boxes planted with a butter lettuce, equalling a total of 16 heads of lettuce of a variety that grows back from cut stalk!
I don't have enough peas to freeze, but I planted only enough to eat fresh. With about five boxes planted, I'm harvesting about a cup a day for the past few days. I expect I have another couple weeks of this, since I've planted a few in shadier places, so those plants are only now flowering.
Hope you're having some bumper crops too!
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| Snap peas that didn't grow as tall as I expected, but are fruiting better than expected. |
5 comments:
Any tips for planting saskatoons? I have very limited gardening experience, but I'd like to give it a try :)
Desi, You can plant them like most bushes- the hole should be double the size of the root ball, shovel a little compost in and plant it as deep as it was planted in the pot. Water it well the first year! Also, try to plant at time that's a little cooler and wetter. Hot, dry conditions often require more work on your part! Happy planting, and eating!
Your garden is looking great!
Our lettuce ("salad bowl lettuce") has also done a lot better this year than previous years, I think it is just the right amount of rain (frequency and quantities) plus the compost/peat moss I added.
Do you have any issues with birds/insects eating the honeyberries? I am interested to try them but wonder how susceptible to birds/insects.
I'm thrilled to have found your blog. I have read everything from start to finish. I planted 14 haskap berry bushes this year; indigo gem, borealis, and pollenator honey bee. I cannot wait until these babies start producing fruit. From what I have read they taste like a rasberry/blueberry cross. What sold me was after 3 years they start producing fruit and a mature bush produces up tp 7kg's of fruit.
We had a good couple bowl-fulls of berries on our two largest bushes this year. Really pleased with the flavour and texture of this particular variety(think it was Bluebell).
We haven't have a problem with insects on the berries, but I noticed that the birds were pretty quick to pick off the lower hanging fruit. When the bushes developed a lot more fruit, I may consider netting.
Coffee Girl- can't wait to hear how your varieties turn out!
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