Backyard Raspberries are the Best!

For about the last week or so, I have been lucky enough to pick a handful a raspberries almost every day from my backyard. The berries couldn't be more delicious! Most days, I end up eating most of the berries before I even get them back to the house! 

I'm loving every berry I've grown but was hoping for a lot more this summer. I think I may have to expand my raspberry patch! Below is what I picked on the  morning of July 20, 2015. What's even cooler is the third picture below, which is a photograph of the new raspberry flowers blooming! These flowers are on the new canes that have started to grow this year. They'll produce a small crop this fall and then a larger crop next spring. Besides the obvious benefits of having the berries in the fall as well, I'm happy to see the flowers because it means my plants are doing well! 

Part of me would love to start my own berry farm one day, or at leas have enough land to grow a year supply of berries! That would be delicious! 

A handful of raspberries, out in my garden. 

Delicious, ripe red heritage raspberries ready to be picked. 

First year raspberry canes flowering for fall crop. 

Raspberries and New Fall Buds!

My heritage red raspberries are finally starting to ripen! I'm getting a couple of berries every morning. However, they don't make it inside to the kitchen! I tend to eat them first!  

I've also had a few berries eaten by birds, a problem I haven't had with my blackberries. 

What caught my attention this morning was the beautiful red berries but also the new buds on first year canes! Raspberries will usually produce a small crop of fruit in the fall on first year canes. However, I'm surprise the buds have developed so wary, especially since I'm still harvesting the spring crop. So cool! 

New Blueberry Canes!

This year has been a little disappointing for my blueberry plants. I think it's mostly due to the fact that I hadn't trimmed the plants at all since I bought them a few years ago. However, it looks like the trimming I did this year is going to benefit me next year and years to come. 

On my oldest blueberry plant, I noticed new canes growing out of the soil. New canes will produce more blueberries. 

This is why trimming blueberries canes are a very important tip for growing blueberries. 

Early June Berry Update!

My Fall Gold raspberries are starting to form! They're coming along much earlier than the heritage red raspberries! 

Meanwhile, the heritage red raspberries have begun to flower! Also new growth for next year's crop is very thick! I'll have to thin it out after the berries ripen. 

My blackberry plant continues to slowly flower and one of the canes is taller than me! And I'm 5'10! 

I also noticed new canes are taking off nicely after a few days of much needed rain. Plants seem to always do better when watered by the sky versus the hose. 

Found Strawberries in the Garden!

I'm As I was watering some perrenial flowers the other day, I noticed some bright red spots in the garden. To my surprise they were ripe strawberries! 

I was a little shocked, I knew the strawberry plants were there and I knew some of them had berries on them but they had grown and ripened so quickly! And to do so in a drought! 

It was a pleasant surprise and i immediately picked them, washed them off and enjoyed the amazing juiciness you can only get with a homegrown berry! 

Find out why my strawberries are growing randomly in my garden here! 

Raspberry Flowers!

The first of the raspberry flowers have opened up for 2015. I actually noticed one flower on each of my raspberry varieties. The photo below is of the flower on my Fall Gold raspberry plant. This is the first year I'll be getting the golden, yellow berries! 

Stages of the Blueberry in Photographs

The blueberry, its the gorgeous marble of fruit that is loaded with antioxidants and deliciousness! This healthy treat from Mother Nature is considered a superfood but do you know what it looks like before it turns blue? 

Below are some photos I took of my blueberry plants in my backyard and the progression from flower to fruit. I think many people underestimate the beautiful bell-shaped flowers of a a blueberry bush. They also don't realize where the actual blueberry starts to form! 

If these photos encourage you to grow some of your own superfood, blueberries in your backyard, here's some facts, tips and tricks! 

The first photo is of the blueberry bush in bloom. The beautiful bell-shaped flowers look so delicate but are in fact pretty hardy. They form in clusters and will eventually become blueberries. They can also come in various shades of white, blue and even red! 

At the next stage, the flowers begin to fall off leaving a small and thin blue base behind. This is in fact the actual blueberry! 

Before the berries start to beef up, they look like these green flat stars. It's actually pretty interesting looking! 

The final stages, from the green plump berries to the ripe blueberry and it's famous blue/purple color! Photo from Wikipedia commons.  

Fall Gold Raspberries Buds!

I'm getting super excited! For the first time since I bought my Fall Gold raspberry plants, i'm finally seeing some flower buds forming on the plant. This means I'll have the very cool looking gold raspberries this summer! Woo-hoo! 

The berries are very similar to the red heritage raspberry, which I am also growing. Both plants will bear fruit and ripen around the same time, providing what I hope to be a beautiful assortment of raspberries! Both varieties are sweet and delicious, excellent for eating fresh. The only difference is the color. Red Heritage raspberries are your traditional bright red, these will be a beautiful yellow, gold color! 

Below are pictures of some of the buds forming on my Fall Gold raspberry plants! 

and what they should look like at harvest time! This photo is from wikipedia commons 

The Good & Bad of my Strawberries

I love strawberries! The little red berries are so sweet and delicious, not to mention healthy too! Strawberries are actually one of the first edible plants I tried to grow! 

Although it was the first edible plant I tried to grow, I have yet to master growing strawberries. However, I've been lucky in some ways and unlucky in others ! 

(Above is one of my strawberry plants in bloom - taken 5/4/15) 

When I first planted strawberries, I bought a small packet of about 20 plants. They were condensed in a small bucket no larger than six square inches. They were a June bearing strawberry, a classification that I had no idea meant at the time! I planted them in my backyard but they ended up dying by the end of the summer (most likely because there wasn't enough sun light). 

Now, here's where the luck kicks in. The following spring, out of no where, strawberry plants began to grow in the garden by the front porch. This was great news because I thought I had lost all my plants, they also seemed to do very well up front, where they got full sun all afternoon. 

We let the strawberry plants stay there for a few years and the began to spread like crazy. I would also get a few good strawberries every year! Finally, it was too much and I had to remove them from the front landscape. So I moved them to the south western side of the house and have just left them to grow on their own. See the photos below. 

Now the bad luck. I've attempted to transplant them to other areas of the yard but they never seem to take. I also tried to transplant some to a container last summer but they didn't survive the winter. 

They're still awesome plants to have and I love seeing the white flowers blossom early in the spring but I wish i could organize them better for a better yield. 

New Duke Blueberry Plant

After two very cold winters in a row and the mistake of not protecting my container blueberry bushes as well as I should have, I've lost one of my four blueberry bushes.

One of the sunshine blue blueberry plants  didn't make it through the butter subzero temps we had this past winter, even with a insulating layer of leaves and snow! 

So I couldn't resist checking out some stores this spring to see if they had any berry plants. This is when I came across the Duke Blueberry. The plant itself looked pretty healthy at the store (see pic of the plant below) and it is a variety that would benefit yeilds among the varieties I already have. 

The Duke Blueberry... 

Now the Duke Blueberry bush is all set in a container ready to blossom with the three other varieties I have. 

Fall Gold Raspberries April 19, 2015

My Fall Gold Raspberries have had a hard time taking off. Last year was the first year they were in the ground the whole time and unfortunately the plants didn't produce many canes, never mind any fruit! 

These raspberries are suppose to grow well with heritage raspberries (which I have planted a few feet away in their own bed). However, unlike the traditional red raspberry of the heritage plant, the fall gold is suppose to produce beautiful yellow/gold berries, usually with a great harvest in the late summer/early fall season. 

After the coldest 3 month period on record in my area of Connecticut, I was worried that my raspberries would be damaged or killed off. However, it seems the prolong snowpack may have actually helped to keep the plants insulated. Now, the raspberries canes are beginning to  lead out and I noticed a lot more smaller canes growing in the fall gold bed! 

It may be small but it's a start to a healthy crop later this year or next yea! I can't wait to try a fall gold raspberry! 

Today's Harvest! 7-21-13

Today was the first day I can say I really harvested anything from my garden because there was actually a variety if stuff to grab! I picked blueberries from two blueberry bushes, I picked a couple of  blackberries, a few Juliet tomatoes an a few cherry tomatoes! 

Totals: 

6 Blackberries 

3 Juliet Tomatoes 

2 cherry Tomatoes 

8 Blueberries 

It's not much but with a very rainy June and now a very hot July  I'm lucky most o my plants are still alive! 

Berries coming along! 6/22/13

The blueberries and Blackberries are coming along nicely! I can't wait to eat them! Hoping the birds don't get to them first! 

The blueberries 

The blackberries! 

Blackberry Flowers! 5/30/13

We have blueberries!!! 5/26/13

Buds are finally turning into actual blueberries!

Berry bushes budding and flowering!

All my berry plants have begun to bud or blossom.  From the strawberry plants to my container blueberries and even my blackberry bush!  The strawberries are beginning to fruit. The blueberries are in transition, there are flowers blossoming on some branches, while other branches the flowers have fallen off and hopefully the fruit will grow.  Finally the blackberry bush is budding! Just today May 22nd, I counted over 50 buds on my small blackberry bush!  

The blueberry bushes! 

The blackberry buds! 

Blueberry bushes are flowering! 5/10/13

The blueberry bushes have flowers! Can't wait for the blueberries to grow!

Strawberry plants are flowering!

The strawberry plants on the side of my yard are thriving all by themselves! I actually didn't even plant them there, I planted them in the backyard and they ended up front. I think I might start giving them more attention this, which might boost my crop! For now though they look so cool with the bright white flowers!

Cold Morning!! 1/24/13

Temps got pretty close to zero this morning, the coldest it's been in a few years! Good thing I moved my potted blueberry bushes, blackberry bush, and Rosemary plant into the shed last Monday...the last time it was ABOVE FREEZING!

Berry plants in a snowstorm

My blueberry and blackberry bushes got covered in the snow over the weekend. Although the marshmallow like blanket of snow that the storm left behind on the shrubs may look cold, I'm actually hoping the small layer of snow will keep the plants warm the next few nights as temps dip down into the single digits!!! Snow can be an insulator and keep temps slightly warmer! With single digit temps I'm not sure my rosemary bush will make it through the winter but you never know!