I've been eating honey berry/haskap/Japanese honeysuckle for a couple of weeks. Strawberries are just coming in now. The pie cherries are ripening ahead of sweet cherries. Is anyone else finding this phenomenon? Normally the pie cherries ripen around the 4th of July, after the sweet cherries are done. Also goumis are coming in now, but that's about normal.
From here on, we have a flood of fruit until new year's day.
Anyone else harvesting? It's wonderful after our climatic seasonal break.
John S
PDX OR
Lets, see:
I'm taking blooms off the newly planted strawberries and blueberries.
Apples are not yet dime size. Peaches are about the same size. Apricots the size of walnuts, so maybe another 6 weeks for those.
The cherry trees are covered almost solid, but fruit is still less than 1/4 inch in diameter.
How does that haskap taste? I've been wondering if they are worth growing.
Oh, yeah. Currently, we are eating bananas from the grocery store. Come on, fruit trees!
The haskap berries are tart. I like them, but the thing I most like about them is that the fruit here in May. Birds don't eat them because they can't find them. They are on the underside of the bush and dark purple. I think they are pretty good but not great. They are supposedly way high in vitamin C, and they've got to be high in all those anti-oxidant things. They are very shade tolerant as well as only 2-3 feet high, which helps them fit into the landscape.
The only other thing I can think of that fruits here in May is salmonberry. I like salmonberries, not so much for their taste but but for the beautiful flower, because they fruit in May, and because they are a shade tolerant native, which helps wildlife and helpful insects.
Oh yeah the Korean cherry bush is fruiting heavily now too.
John S
PDX OR
I have a couple of varieties of honeyberry too. This is they're second year. The appearance, texture, and nutrition are what they have going for them. They look like fruit, they are soft and there is nothing objectionable about the seeds or texture.
The flavor is just tart. Like a little bit of citric acid in pulp. They won't make you pucker, but the flavor isn't very nuanced. I eat them if there isn't enough of other appealing things out there.
I've tried letting them hang for a long time after they turn blue to see if they develop any sweetness or interesting flavor, but it doesn't seem to change much.
Strangely, my mom tried one last week for the first time and thought it was wonderful. Go figure?
I've been getting a few raspberries and white strawberries each day for the last 3 weeks or so.
I have a Compact Stella cherry (maybe in its 5th season) on Colt with a couple varieties of pie cherries grafted on. There are maybe 6 sweet and 4 pie fruit on it this year. The cherries are all still ver small but are softening and beginning to turn red.
Do they get any bigger after they start turning color?
[quote="jafarj":3b8czu0l]I have a Compact Stella cherry (maybe in its 5th season) on Colt with a couple varieties of pie cherries grafted on. There are maybe 6 sweet and 4 pie fruit on it this year. The cherries are all still ver small but are softening and beginning to turn red.
Do they get any bigger after they start turning color?[/quote:3b8czu0l]
I have a 3rd season Stella. A week ago the fruit looked terrible. But they are filling out as they color up. Hoping my hawk decoys keep the birds away. My pie cherry (same age) is prolific, but the fruit is still small with no color.
Pie cherries in general are somewhat smaller than sweet cherries. After they turn color they don't seem to get bigger. I think they get sweeter just before getting ripe. I always net mine. Birds don't go as crazy for pie cherries as they do for sweet cherries, but I love them so much I hate to lose any. I am in the process of netting this morning. Pie cherries have vitamin A as well as vitamin C, which is what sweet cherries have. I wonder if my pie cherry ripened earlier this year because I moved it over the winter. Normally it ripens about July 4.
John S
PDX OR
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