To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [NAFEX] (NAFEX) Temperate berry crops
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 07:40:13 -0600
Bill,
I'm pretty sure that Jim Fruth has blackberries up there in zone 3, so
zone 5 shouldn't be that big a deal. I'm not sure red raspberries can take
the heat and drought all that well. Comments anyone? The black raspberries
do sort of ok here, but never the huge crops that blackberries serve up.
Here is a nice map and listings from Pense Nursery: http://www.alcasoft.com/pense/success.html
I notice that they have some different info on their plants from Simmons
Berry Farm, where I ordered last year.
http://www.alcasoft.com/simmons/index.html Simmons orders were for 5 plants each, looks like at Pense you can order 1
of each if you like. I'd order at least 2 of each variety, (after digging
around for info on just which varieties you want), just in case you lose
one.
When I did a search for blackberries + zone, I got a NAFEX archived offer
from Vic to Del offering him some Z3 blackberries. So you needn't worry
your little head about blackberries taking the cold. As for the heat and
drought, they can probably take that if you can get them established.
Chickasaw is said to be the most heat and drought resistant. We were as dry
as your fencepost was back in the fall of 2005, and still had wild
blackberries cropping in '06. What I have read is that the thornless ones
like the soil a little more acid than the thorny ones. As for flavor,
berries picked commercially will be picked for black color, not for
ripeness. Most people buying them were probably planning on cooking them
with lots of sugar anyway, or putting them in a salad with sweeter fruit
just for their color. RIPE blackberries are plenty sweet enough to eat in
the field, and with a minor bit of lily gilding, are excellent eating in the
kitchen. Donna