On Thursday, July 17, 2014 10:49:34 AM UTC-4, Terry Coombs wrote:
Pavel314 wrote:

On Tuesday, July 15, 2014 3:03:47 PM UTC-4, Terry Coombs wrote:

Another gallon of blackberries in the freezer , and I only lost a

couple



ounces of blood and gained a handful of chigger bites ... What I

expected to



be an hour and 3 pints or so turned into 3.5 hours well , I

actually stood



in the road talking to the new neighbors for about 3/4 hour and

over a



gallon of berries . I waited 3 days this time to pick , which it

turns out



is a mistake . Too many over-ripe berries , pluck one and another

falls too



. And I sure ain't diggin' around in the weeds for a few berries ,

there's



bugs and snakes and stuff down there ! So from now until they're

gone it'll



be every other day . And of course I'm not picking it all , the

birds and



other small critters get their share . After all , they're the ones



responsible for us having the plants all over .



Speaking of all over , I noticed today that we have new canes

growing in



areas that were bush hogged year-before-last by the utility company

in their



easement for power poles , they keep the trees 30 feet away from

the lines



so next year there'll be more places to pick . This year has been a

banner



year for wild fruit , we've had just about the right mix of rainy

and sunny



days . The blackberry patches are still covered up with unripened

fruit . I



expect to harvest at a minimum another 4-6 gallons over the next few

weeks .



And if all the muscadines on the vines make it to maturity , we'll

be havin'



all kinds of fun makin' wine , jelly , and my wife has a great juice

recipe



. I may have to buy another freezer for what we won't have time to



process/room to store !



--



Snag



I guess tending wild fruit patches



counts as gardening ...



Where are you located? We had almost no berries in our area last

year, Maryland north of Baltimore, but there were a lot of unripened

ones on the bushes last weekend. I hope we get enough this year to

make jelly, wine, or both.



Paul



I'm in Stone County Arkansas , north central part . Last year was dismal

here , nowhere near enough rain . This year we've had rainy then sunny then

more rain , in just about the perfect mix . I finally gave up on getting any

blueactually low bush huckleberries , the critters eat them as fast as

they ripen . The 3 blackberry patches I've been working all have enormous

quantities of unripe berries , and I'll be out there again today to pick ..

Every other day seems to work best . I haven't had to water my garden at all

this year and everything is just bustin' out - some of the tomato plants are

nearly 2 feet over the 5' cages , and all are loaded . We've got over 70

strawberry plants now from the original 14 I planted , and so far I've

managed to save seed from bok choy and spinach for a late summer planting .

Lettuces haven't made seed yet , but I'll be harvesting that too .



--

Snag

The blackberries finally ripened up here. I thought there would have been more and larger berries with all the rain lately but it was more of an average year. Also, the berries seem to be ripening in phases, with only about 1/3 to 1/4 of the berries on a bush ripe and black at a time.