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Post by cabby on Jul 8, 2024 11:24:00 GMT -5
I was getting overwhelmed trying to shove my brain full of rock info, so decided to take a day for harvests! Started out with the black raspberries at the edges of the yard (mowing zone). I plan to transplant some to the garden this autumn, but for now I only have the wild patches to harvest. Working up the courage to harvest from the SEVERELY overgrown red raspberry garden… would you believe that I haven’t found a single restaurant or gift shop selling anything with black raspberries?! It’s literally a yard “weed” around here and no one seems to be using it… was a bit of a culture shock when I moved from a city to rural Wisconsin and found a HUGE variety of wild edibles that were being ignored.   |
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Post by chris1956 on Jul 8, 2024 11:43:57 GMT -5
Great idea on transplanting some wild ones. We have a lot here in NW Missouri but they rarely get ripe because there are so many hungry animals and birds. I have had some that I bought in the garden for many years but they have developed some sort of disease and I need to remove them.
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Post by cabby on Jul 8, 2024 12:08:40 GMT -5
chris1956 last year I harvested the black raspberries and blackberries twice a day, morning and afternoon, to beat the wildlife to them! I still get sad seeing that someone beat me to one that I was waiting to ripen, so decided to transplant some to fenced areas. Will be doing the same for hazelnuts in the future, since I didn’t get a SINGLE nut last year!!!
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Post by cabby on Jul 8, 2024 12:16:26 GMT -5
I finally gave up on the red raspberries after 2 cups or so. Second year of being taunted by fruit I can’t reach! I did clean out all the dead canes this spring and topped the ones I was leaving, but not good enough. Won’t be able to harvest much until I kill off the wild grapes and dig up the extra raspberries.
this spring was dedicated to starting an annual garden, and will work on revamping the preexisting perennial garden this autumn. Need to divide up the rhubarb and asparagus, dig up tons of grapes and red raspberries, and transplant wild blackberries, black raspberries, blueberries, red currants, and gooseberries. In a year or two I will make an “orchard” zone for the other things such as wild plums and hazelnuts.
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Post by cabby on Jul 8, 2024 12:16:53 GMT -5
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ThomasT
has rocks in the head
Member since June 2022
Posts: 624
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Post by ThomasT on Jul 8, 2024 19:17:58 GMT -5
The bears eat all my wild blackberries and wild blueberries. But I do manage to get some of the muscadines falling out of the trees in September.
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Post by cabby on Jul 9, 2024 6:42:31 GMT -5
The bears eat all my wild blackberries and wild blueberries. But I do manage to get some of the muscadines falling out of the trees in September. Thankfully I don’t have much trouble with that. The bears, wolves, and coyotes tend to stay deeper in the forest, not on my small section of it. The deer are definitely the worst for the berries! Most of the understory in the woods is quite heavily pruned each year. Sadly, can’t bring myself to do anything about it…. Last owners were hunters but the deer have already learned to trust us, so now our yard is a safe place for does to bring their fawns as well as all the fawns and yearlings to gather during the mating season… being able to play peekaboo with the youngsters or have a doe grazing 10ft away while I am doing yardwork is just too awesome! My solution to wildlife getting things first is move things to areas with tall fences, and anything outside the fence is theirs. Being able to watch/interact with the wildlife is more important to me 😁 |
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ThomasT
has rocks in the head
Member since June 2022
Posts: 624
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Post by ThomasT on Jul 9, 2024 7:59:32 GMT -5
Watch out for those Deer ticks...
The deer feed us here.
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Post by cabby on Jul 9, 2024 8:10:52 GMT -5
Watch out for those Deer ticks... The deer feed us here. Unfortunately, we discovered pretty quickly that the ticks and mosquitoes are quite bad here, AND it’s one of the highest tick borne illnesses counties in the country. We have permethrin treated clothing, keep pants tucked into socks, go through cans of bug spray like you wouldn’t believe, throw our clothing into the dryer as soon as we come inside, and have handheld mirrors in each bathroom to check ourselves over asap lol. Hubby and I each suffer “psycho-ticking” pretty much daily during the summer. It’s not as bad as it was last year, but our property was neglected for many years by previous owners. Gets a bit better with each buckthorn thicket we remove… but neighbors are still shocked at how much worse the skeeters and ticks are on our property than theirs. I think a few more years of lawn treatment, brush clearing, and tick tubes will bring us to a reasonable level. |
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Post by chris1956 on Jul 9, 2024 9:41:15 GMT -5
Watch out for those Deer ticks... The deer feed us here. Unfortunately, we discovered pretty quickly that the ticks and mosquitoes are quite bad here, AND it’s one of the highest tick borne illnesses counties in the country. We have permethrin treated clothing, keep pants tucked into socks, go through cans of bug spray like you wouldn’t believe, throw our clothing into the dryer as soon as we come inside, and have handheld mirrors in each bathroom to check ourselves over asap lol. Hubby and I each suffer “psycho-ticking” pretty much daily during the summer. It’s not as bad as it was last year, but our property was neglected for many years by previous owners. Gets a bit better with each buckthorn thicket we remove… but neighbors are still shocked at how much worse the skeeters and ticks are on our property than theirs. I think a few more years of lawn treatment, brush clearing, and tick tubes will bring us to a reasonable level. The permethrin treated clothing works great here in NW Missouri for the ticks. They were really thick this year. |
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Post by cabby on Jul 9, 2024 10:41:00 GMT -5
I am glad that I didn’t wait any longer to start the black raspberry harvest! Today there were tons of fruits that are edible now but will be PERFECT with one more warm day to ripen. Would miss half or more if I wait til morning, so it’s time to start the twice daily harvest!   |
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Post by jasoninsd on Jul 15, 2024 22:14:57 GMT -5
When I was a kid, we'd go into The Black Hills on the weekends and pick wild raspberries (red) and chokecherries. My mom used to make jams...and syrup once or twice when she messed up the jam recipe somehow! LOL
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Post by cabby on Jul 16, 2024 6:10:58 GMT -5
I use black raspberries for syrup, hands down! There is NOTHING like a pile of pancakes with black raspberry syrup to start of a day of yardwork! The red raspberries get used for everything else. I freeze my daily harvests unless I plan to use them right away, so just keep stocking berries til I want them for something. I suspect that all the red raspberries will be jam. Blackberry will probably be syrup as well, since we got very sad when we ran out last year.
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