Archive for the ‘Crops – Berries’ Category
August 17, 2008 – Blackberry Skeptics!
We packed up some goods to be sold by someone else at the Des Moines Farmer’s Market yesterday. Among the items were our gorgeous blackberries.
Customers at the market were suspicious that such nice berries could be grown in Iowa and certainly, they must have been shipped in from Oregon or elsewhere. This page is an invitation for all skeptics to type the word “blackberries” in the search box to the left to find photos dating back to May 2006, when the blackberries were first planted!
Here’s another testimonial straight from the field!
one year ago…”They Call me the Batman”
July 16, 2008 – Fruit on the Verge
While the cherries are still hanging on, the next batch of fruit is getting ready.
The peaches are very plentiful – we’ve been culling a lot fruit off the trees to keep the branches from breaking.
The blackberries are in the third year and lookng extremely good this year.
one year ago…”New Tractor Tire”
July 6, 2008 – New Blooms
There are a few new blooms on the farm this week.
These are a variety of allium that were on super close-out late last fall. They add spunk to bouquets and attract beneficial insects as well.
These are the more common elderberry blossoms – this is the first year we’ve had a profusion of blooms, so we’ll have to figure what, if anything, to do with the elderberries, other than wild bird food.
one year ago…”Black and White”
July 4, 2008 – Strawberry Renovation
This might not look like much, but it is an important part of strawberry health. After the berries have completed bearing for the year, I mow them down at the highest level I can and then spread compost on the patch.
This encourages the plants to send out healthy runners to improve the patch. The berries were plentiful this year due to the rain, but the taste was not as sweet as year’s past until the very end of the season when things finally dried out a little. I hunted down the last few hidden berries after I mowed, for a sweet goodbye to the strawberry season.
one year ago…”Three Minutes at a Time”
June 3, 2008 – Fruit on the Way
It looks like it will be a great fruit year!
The strawberries are on the verge of ripening.
The cherries are very plentiful – thank you bees!
one year ago…”Chickens Movin’ Out”
May 27, 2008 – Weeding Raspberries
After lots of excitement on the farm, it’s back to work that has slid with all the recent activity. Some of the raspberries needed some weeding attention.
Here’s a stretch of berries with weeds doing a good job of competing.
A section showing the weeds lost the battle with Linda the weeder and the berries once again have better air circulation and chances to get sun and water, although water is not a problem this spring!
one year ago…”Soap Making Day 1″
November 27, 2007 – End of Season Berries
Throughout the summer, I’ve posted photos of many tantalizing raspberries. Now it’s time to see the berries in the “off season.”
This is a row of fall-bearing raspberries, mowed down just the other day, ready for another season. I love these guys – they are so easy compared to the summer berries.
September 18, 2007 – Raspberries, Again
The frost did not take out the berries. Here’s one crate – we got over three of these and only picked a little more than half the berries.
I’ll miss these in the winter (but we’ll have ‘em frozen and canned to enjoy).
September 8, 2007 – Raspberries & Apples
Today was another big picking day – both raspberries and apples. I even got tired of picking raspberries today. We also started on the peach harvest, they seem to ripen better off the tree. But those will be for another day.
So, 24 more jars of canned raspberries, 11 pints of peach-applesauce, and 22 pints of raspberry-applesauce. The apple sauce was from some apples we had peeled and frozen earlier in the season, plus some apples the girls picked and peeled today. ‘Tis the season for harvest. I was thinking, although it might seem like a lot, 33 pints of applesauce is not even one jar a week. OK, you can subtract summer months when other fruits are in season, and that leaves us with one jar a week from today’s batch!
September 5, 2007 – Fall Raspberries
The fall raspberries are really coming into their own – it seems like by the time you pick to the end of the row, more have ripened at the beginning!
I much prefer the fall-bearers to the summer berries because they are so much less work and produce more. It would be hard to give up all the summer bearers, as waiting until September is a long time.
July 31, 2007 – Blackberries!
The blackberries we planted in the spring of 2006 are giving their first fruit this year!
They have a sweet/sour taste that has to be sooo good for you! The row looks very healthy and there are many more on the way. Like most everything we do, we weren’t too sure how we’d like them or how they’d grow here, so we just put in one 75 foot row. Looks like a thumbs up for blackberries so far. If I was forced, I’d say blackberries make my favorite jam.
July 10, 2007 – Blueberries for More than Sal!
We tend to enjoy things on vacation that others might not think are enjoying! Being the preserving/putting food away folks that we are, we bring canning jars along in case we get enough blueberries!
The blueberries this year were exceptional. I had resigned myself to a bad year since there were fires earlier this spring and the whole arrowhead region was dry. But the rains must have been well-timed for the blueberries. The berries were large and plentiful.
We made sure to “eat local” even while on vacation! We had fresh blueberry pancakes, blueberry muffins, blueberry cobbler and fried walleye. In addition to all the blueberries we ate fresh, we brough home 24 half-pint jars of whole canned berries and many gallons more fresh to make jam and freeze. I think we must have picked about 6 gallons of blueberries throughout the week.
one year ago…
June 25, 2007 – Strawberry Renovation
Today was the beginning of strawberry renovation (or more accurately, retirement). This is an ugly strawberry patch. We harvested the last of the berries today and that is the end for this patch.
Strawberries are difficult to keep weeded, especially organically-grown berries and this patch is five years old or so and the weed pressures finally made it unbearable to weed. We planned the retirement and planted a fresh patch this spring. Next year, that one will be ready and nearly weed-free!
So we just mow the old one down, spread some manure and old bedding (seen in the photo above) then cover the soil and let the critters of the dark take over the decomposing and kill all the weeds that remain. Next spring this will be available for general garden planting.
June 19, 2007 – Veggie Tour
We’ll follow up yesterday’s flower tour with a veggie tour today! We froze the first of the broccoli today and have about 96 jars of jam canned up already this week. The cool season crops are about done with and the raspberries are just beginning to fruit.
