North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>]

> Normally, a home grower ... you attempt to spread your harvest over a period 
> of time,...


As a home grower, I'll point out one disadvantage to this. If your 
berries all come ripe at once, you have a chance of getting some for 
yourself before all the birds in the neighborhood discover the banquet. 
Once they discover the feast, this becomes very difficult. (This also 
applies to squirrels, if it's a fruit they like. I don't usually have 
them bothering my raspberries.)

I've got a black raspberry patch in the backyard that was started, as a 
single seed-grown plant, by the birds. They bear a fine crop with little 
work, and they are absolutely delicious. Normally, I get more and more 
bird trouble as they continue to produce, until the birds get just about 
every one at the end of the season. But by then, I've had lots of 
delicious berries.

Last year, I had a couple of plants which were apparently of a different 
variety. They had larger berries (though not nearly as tasty), and they 
bloomed and ripened later than the others. But by then, the birds 
already knew about the raspberry patch. I ended up covering the berries 
on each plant with a nylon bootie, or I wouldn't have even known what 
they tasted like. (I'm going to get rid of them this year.)

I also have an Illinois Everbearing Mulberry which bore fruit for the 
first time last year, but I didn't get a single berry, since they don't 
bear all at once. Extending the harvest sounds like a great idea for a 
home grower, but unless you can keep the birds and animals completely 
away, they'll get to the fruit first. If it all comes ripe at once, 
they'll eat some of it, but not all.

So far, that's been my experience, anyway.

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

--
I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it. 
- W. C. Fields