Short notes are on my Homepage

Just left a few notes on my home page. Check it out!

Concerned about early bud break!

Well this fall weather has produced some strange things and one of them is early bud break. This is happening on fruit trees and shrubs here and the honeysuckles are no exception. It is quite concerning when you look and see fresh green and know it will get frozen in a month or so.
Here is a look!

 This is a Honeysuckle tip!

This is a Chokecherry tip!














I did not check others but I expect there could be some damage as well!

Summer cultivation and clean up continues!

Finished pulling out the old carpeting I had laid down between the rows of my Edible Blue Honeysuckle so this week I could roto-till the pathways and clean up a little. Still some serious pruning to be done to get rid of the low growing branches and make the plants smaller.
Here are some pictures of the new look.

As you can see there is Quack Grass and also Canada Thistle and Sow Thistle still growing so that needs to go too!

July 2016 Clean Up

I decided to give the honeysuckle nursery/orchard a real clean up so
have pruned all plants with the hedge trimmer and pushed all the
cuttings out of the paths. I plan to remove all the old carpeting and
till between the rows and the plants if it is at all possible.

I have attached several pictures of the clean up results.

We only got about a handful of berries again as we were away when the
plants should have been covered with netting. Cedar Waxwings and even
Robins are real pests for us here.

Harvest season over! It was much better.

Well we got about 40lbs of berries this year which is way above the last 3 years. And generally speaking the berries were quite good. Some were rather large! A number of these plants were from seed from Poland and those plants did have some big berries. Sadly many of these also were quite strong to bitter flavoured.

 Compare these to the leaves.

Flavour went from medium sweet to quite bitter. Part of the problem is the birds (Cedar Waxwings) got the topmost berries and then the rain caused excess new growth which covered over what was left. Cool weather and lack of sunlight causes a greater uptake of tannins and anthocyanins from my experience in Barley breeding. We always saw a greater increase in red and purple colors during the cool, wet seasons.

The final gathering was from pruning out the lower branches and there were many good collections of berries under the protection of the heavy leaf cover!

I plan to do a lot of extra pruning this year and also will discard some of the plants which have very bitter flavours.
And of course you have to try something with the berries so this year my wife Marg made a pie with 1/2 Edible Blue Honeysuckle and 1/2 blueberries. A good combination but still quite rich and tart. Lots of dark blue coloring though so really healthy in spite of the sugar.

I did gather a few berries for seed but not sure if I will plant anything this year.

Best looking pan full of berries today!

Here are a couple of pictures from this afternoon.
Nice collection of berries mostly from 2 bushes. Good flavours to!

The picker! Well covered to combat mosquitoes!

 The berries! Very nice color!

Polish Seedlings and berry picking

Picked again today with a cloud of mosquitoes! They are persistent so I pulled on a white long sleeved shirt (had on grey coveralls to start) and took out some citronella candles along with on Off Belt Clip and it did go better.
Most of the berries are in the lower half of the plants as the Cedar Waxwings cleaned the tops off of berries. This means the berries are a little more bitter than I would like by heh!, we have not gotten berries like this for 4 years at least!

I was picking in a mixed population of seedlings mostly from seed I got from a friend in Poland. The berries are big (Big Berry was the designation for the seed) and can be good flavoured nearer the top.

 Some of the berries which are a little red are TART but they have not had sunlight way down under the leaves. Jam and jelly will still be good!