Scott and Rob, what do you spray for brown rot? If you are already spraying MFF and still having this many problems with it, I don’t think I want to add any more sweet cherries. Right now I have only White Gold (total harvest- 1 cherry) and a rootstock (New Root, a dwarfing RS, which used to be a Black Tartarian before the rootstock took over).
Here’s my NorthStar- the first few are just about ready. The last few days I’ve been looking around the house for the flash tape used to scare birds. I know I bought some, but don’t recall where I stashed it. I’m not sure it will work anyways, but I do have quite a few to protect this year…
The only other thing ready in the yard are Prelude raspberries. My daughter found the first one on Friday and I found a half dozen this afternoon. There is a lull in the strawberries, as the animals have eaten everything remotely ripe.
Bob, I only spray for brown rot later in the season, I usually try to get the cherries through without any rot sprays. I need to remove any bug-ridden fruit as that is where the rot starts, but usually I don’t have much of a rot problem. I could always spray MFF on them if needed.
The flashing tape worked almost perfectly on the cherries this year. I got a few early bird bites before the tape was up and almost nothing since I put it up. I moved the tape from the Black Gold to the Montmorency this weekend.
I picked 3 kinds of mulberries today:
Random seedling- Pretty bland, 8 brix (small berry on the far left)
Girardi- Still pretty bland, but slightly sweeter than the seedling. The berry is also much larger, so there is something to be said for this cultivar. 10 brix, note- I measured the most ripe one (the collection of larger mulberries on the right)
Oscar- Smaller fruit than Girardi but better taste. It isn’t strongly flavored, but has a nice sweet taste and very dark colored juice. 15 brix (the single berry on the bottom, to the right of the cherries).
Regrettably, it looks like I missed Kokuso, as I don’t see any more berries on it. There are a few Illinois Everbearing, but they are still green.
I picked a few of the Crimson Passions. They are palatable, but not really ripe. Right now, they are like red currants, but a little less tart. 10 brix. I found my bird tape, so I’m going to let them hang a bit longer.
The raspberries are Preludes. Nothing else is close to ready.
Wow Bob! Fantastic display of this years berries!!! I’m convinced you have no ‘Cat’ birds. The birds in my yard would dessimate those berries in one day! They are beautiful. What will you do with all of them? Great going!
I have the first tray of mulberries freezing. When I get about 3 trays its jammin’/pie fillin’ time. Hubby loves them more than anything else.
I had a few while picking. The tree got a lot more light this year due to the removal of the two chokecherries (finally popped up with black knot, so out they went) that shaded it quite a bit. They seem to have more flavor this year.
If I start getting multiple pounds of berries each day, then I need to figure out what to do with them. Until then, me and the kids can eat them all fresh. My wife will help if there are any left. It would take 10X the amount from the pic to be “enough”.
Some fruits will be devoted to jam, particularly currants (black on their own and red/white ones mixed with other fruits for their pectin) and elderberries (possibly with some blackberries). If I ever reach the “too much” stage with hardy kiwi, I’d love to try them in jam.
If I get enough sour cherries, I may decide to do something with them- either juice or jam. But if I can get the brix up enough, I may just eat them.
The birds don’t usually eat too many of the raspberries. Or if they do, it isn’t very noticeable. They clear out the sour cherries and mulberries pretty quickly. After picking the above berries, I hung some holographic scare tape.
I’m sure that the birds will figure it out eventually. But they haven’t impressed me recently with their intelligence. The last two mornings I’ve been woken up by a bird repeatedly flying into our patio door. A lot. Maybe half a dozen times in 30 seconds. Then he(?) rests for a while and tries again.
Made cherry / black raspberry sauce from fresh sour cherries and frozen raspberries . The raspberries will be ripening soon here so time to use up the last of the frozen ones .
That was a prophetic question. Within a day of me saying- we’ll eat it all fresh, my daughters showed how little I know.
They picked 2 pints (1 each) of Prelude raspberries. Then, while I was still outside grafting, took them inside, mushed them up, and mixed them with chocolate milk. They drank some as is, then had me put it in the freezer to partially freeze.
