North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Sarah Kehler Ewing <skkewing@yahoo.com>]

I've tried Blue Belle, Berry Blue,  Blue Bird, Blue Velvet, Cinderella, Svetlana and Tundra.  I would have to say I like them all.  But I haven't noticed much flavour difference between the varieties, but maybe I'll do an actual taste test with some subjects this spring!  The Tundra berries did have a different shape than the rest: it was wider and more of a flat cylinder as opposed to the long, thin, round cylinder that the Honeyberries are.

          

Personally I don't care to eat very many of them straight out of hand.  And they are down right bitter and horrid if you eat them when they first turn blue, but are not yet soft.   Even when they are soft, they are still on the tart side.  As a former B.C. mountain dweller, I like to say Haskaps/Honeyberry taste is like Oregon Grapes combined with blueberries.  They are very full of flavour  and not a faint, insipid flavour.        

With the tartness in mind, they are excellent mixed with other fruit and I can't wait to have buckets of them to experiment with processing this year.

Anyone interested in seeds this year?  Let me know and I'll put you in my seeds file.  I'm going to try and separate the seeds by variety this year, assuming I can also beat the birds off with my netting!

Sarah 

zone 3
Edmonton, AB

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Maria,

I have not tasted the new "Canadian" varieties of honeyberries labeled "Haskap".  However, I do not see that a few decades of breeding work from our neighbors to the north necessarily has improved them significantly from the centuries of cultivation that probably occurred in Asia or Japan.  Not saying it hasn't, but I've been around long enough to be suspicious of claims of breeders.  So I think you have asked a very perceptive question here.

I do very much like the taste of most of the honeyberry varieties I have grown and there is a significant range of taste each season.  My problem with this is I have not paid enough attention to this range to determine if it is a ripeness issue  between varieties or an actual difference in the varieties themselves.

Speaking of haskap,  has anyone actually tasted them?  Are they 
really that much better then honeyberries?  I'd love to plant a 
bunch, but its a little scary just going on the publicity from the 
haskap association and the u. of Saskatchewan.  If anyone has tasted 
them-- what varieties do people like?


On Mar 23, 2010, at 11:30 AM, Ernest Plutko wrote:

> I obtained a variety of haskap seed last autumn.  I put then with
> moistened peat in a sealed one quart jar.  Buried the jar in my
> garden over winter.  Dug up the jar last week with the aid of warm
> water to thaw dirt.  A few of the haskap seeds are germinating.
> Turns out that haskap seed does not need cold treatment to germinate.
> Just plant them when you get them.  I didn't do enough research.
> I'll baby the sprouting seeds.  I usually have a black thumb when
> starting seeds.
>
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