Berry varieties for the garden

[Flatrock]

Last year we bought a new house and I tilled up a vegetable garden. This year, I want to get some berries going. I'm thinking raspberry, strawberry and blueberry. Just curious for the guys that have some, what varieties do you have and how have they done? My wife's aunt and uncle live in town and they've had some troubles getting blueberries and strawberries to produce well.

Also, I'd like to grow them in beds. Any and all advice is welcome!

 

[KDM]

We've put yellow and red rasberries in our garden along with goose berry, honey berry, and blue berries. Everything but the blueberries is doing fine. The honey berries are rated for zone 2 and they fruit VERY early. Like in early June. Ours haven't gotten very big, but they produce pretty good. The fruit is very much like blue berries, but they are about 2/3 of the size. The rasberries are going great gangbusters like most rasberries do and the goose berries are steadily getting bigger, but the birds REALLY REALLY like goose berry fruit so if we want any we will have to net them. I don't know how growing any of these in beds would be like, so I'm of no help there. Good Luck!!!

 

[NDwalleyes]

Juneberries

 

[muskelllunge13]

Blueberrys hard to grow in Bismarck area soils are to alkaline, go with the Juneberrys, Regent don't grow to tall the ones you can get from the county. Tastier than the other bigger cultivars IMO, I have 4 different cultivars.

Raspberry try Autumn Bliss its a fall bearer that you mow off after frost and produces on the next years new growth, so the easiest to thin , just mow them, Don't produce until August - first hard freeze.

Gooseberrys and currents also grow well here as above said.

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I use to have a bed of Sioux variety strawberries that did really well North of Bis I had bought from Gurney's 30 years ago. A old variety developed by USDA in Wyoming. Not sure where you can get now though. Killed em after the Wife became allergic to them. But they did produce well after a couple years if you spent the time plucking off the runners early.

 

[Allen]

Honey berries for sure, blueberries are a pain in the arse around here. Juneberries are great, but the birds raise hell with them at my place. Gooseberries are a novelty that wears off quickly.

I've been thinking about trying mulberry, but have no idea how they will do around here (Bismarck area).

 

[NodakBuckeye]

Your best bet for blueberries is probably in a box or bed you can fill with topsoil not from around here, needs an acidic soil. I'm guessing there are cultivars that can survive our winters, they grow in Alaska.

You want full sun where you plant them. I might try some this year but will need to set up a deer proof bed. Man are they thick in town here- year round

 

[Bed Wetter]

Raspberries are a thorny, invasive, messy, mosquito magnet and I can think of no better use of soil. They grow like weeds and produce a bountiful bliss.

When I was a kid, my neighbor had a huge garden with a raspberry patch. He passed away unexpectedly and his wife (who is still a gem to this day, 20+ years later) gave us free reign of his massive garden. Dad would send us over a couple times a week with ice cream pails. We'd fill both pails half full with raspberries and deliver one to the neighbor widow. We'd play kick-the-can and ghost in the graveyard and hide out in her raspberries, staining our bare feet and suffering the onslaught of mosquito bites to spoil our dinner on burgundy divinity.

Raspberries are so delicious, so fruitful, and so effortless to grow... why waste your time trying to choke a few berries out of some other plant?

 

[Petras]

For those of you that have honeyberry bushes, did it take a couple years to produce fruit? We've had ours planted for 2 years now and they are growing great but not producing any fruit. Any insight?

 

[NodakBuckeye]

Good point raspberry bed wetter! Petras- are they of the same variety? Blueberries set more fruit when planted with 2 cultivars, in fact most will set none to almost none when plantings are the same. Juneberries are probably similar.

 

[BDub]

Boyne and Latham are recommended raspberries for ND. Ft. Laramie and Ogallala strawberries are recommended by NDSU.
As mentioned blueberries are difficult to grow. I have two honeyberry bushes as they have done well in the NDSU test plots. I'm going to try Juneberries again as nothing beats Juneberry pie.

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Petras I'm pretty sure honeyberries require two cultivars. Mine are small with a moderate amount of berries. Most likely isn't helping that they only get watered when it rains.

 

[Petras]

My 2 bushes are the same flavor of honeyberry. Guess I'll have to look for other variety this spring then.

 

[KDM]

For those of you that have honeyberry bushes, did it take a couple years to produce fruit? We've had ours planted for 2 years now and they are growing great but not producing any fruit. Any insight?

Two varieties and they produced BIG TIME the second year. The first was just a growth year to get established I guess. Last year was a great crop as well. Ours are short little things and the berries are under the leaves. A person has to dig for'em.

 

[Flatrock]

Thanks guys for the suggestions. I might have to call the extension office as well and get their opinions.

 

[fullrut]

Two varieties and they produced BIG TIME the second year. The first was just a growth year to get established I guess. Last year was a great crop as well. Ours are short little things and the berries are under the leaves. A person has to dig for'em.

Thanks all for confirming my suspicions. Having the same issues with the honey berries. Have four goji berry bushes, 3 years now no berries. Also have a contender peach tree that was supposed to be self pollinating. Four years now, and over twelve feet tall and not even a blossom.

 

[Lycanthrope]

Oh man, I dunno if I can even list all the stuff I have going on but Ill try:

Cherries:
Carmine Jewel (bush)
Juliet
Crimson Passion
Romeo
Montmorency (tree)
Evans Bali

Juneberry:
Smokey
Lee8
Martin
JB30

Honeyberry:
Indigo Gem
Borealis
Beauty
Blizzard
Honey Bee
Solo
Maxine
Happy Giant
Blue Moose
Aurora

Gooseberries:
Hinnomaki Red
Pixwell

Peach:
Reliance

Plum:
Superior

Grapes:
Reliance
Swenson Red
Swenson White
Valiant
Edelweiss
St Croix
Vanessa
Price

Raspberries:
Anne (removing these this spring)
Caroline
Polka

Apples:
Sweet 16
Blondee
Pixie Crunch
Haralson
Honeycrisp
State Fair
Williams Pride
Macoun
Blushing Golden
Zestar
Honeygold
Gravenstein
Shizuka
Pristine

Blueberries:
Bluecrop
Northblue
Patriot

Mullberry:
Illinois Everbearing

Asian Pear: New Century

 

[KDM]

We also planted sand cherries and OMG did we have fruit this year. We had so many that even the chickens couldn't eat'em. They make AWESOME syrup for pancakes and ice cream. Just the right amount of sweet to tart kick. MMMMMMM!!!! We also had enough cranberries this year to try'em. NOT a fan. Those are going to get left for the birds. We only have 6 bushes and they look great as a hedge, but acky poo on the fruit. Our currents grow well, but the birds get most of those and our choke berry (not choke cherry) bushes are good, but again the birds get most of those. I guess blue berry is the only TOTAL FLOP we've ever had.

 

[Lycanthrope]

I dont know how big your yard is but Id recommend at least one apple tree. Cherry bushes, probably carmine jewel (tart but very productive, great for sauces, jellies and pies) and juliet(sweeter and good for fresh eating). Raspberry, both my polka and caroline are very productive, caroline have larger berries but polka is the best yielder, both are primocane meaning I chop them to the ground every fall. Because of SWD you will need to spray raspberries. Lots of new varieties of honeyberry coming out lately but Id recommend aurora for sure. Borealis isnt worth bothering with and I dug mine out last fall. I planted 5 new varieties last summer/fall so wont know much about them for a couple years. Grapes are fun but require some maintenance and a trellis. My blueberries are an ongoing struggle. They are in containers buried in the ground but keeping the PH in the right range is difficult, thinking about digging them out and replacing them with more honeyberry, well see how they look this spring...

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Carmine Jewel Cherries

 

[Lycanthrope]

Thanks all for confirming my suspicions. Having the same issues with the honey berries. Have four goji berry bushes, 3 years now no berries. Also have a contender peach tree that was supposed to be self pollinating. Four years now, and over twelve feet tall and not even a blossom.

I had a contender peach from gurneys for 3 years and it died over winter after that 3rd summer. Before it died it produced about a dozen peaches and they were very good. It got to about 8 feet tall. Replaced with reliance which had a few peaches last year but this year Im hoping for a decent harvest, if it survives the winter.

 

[NodakBuckeye]

Thanks all for confirming my suspicions. Having the same issues with the honey berries. Have four goji berry bushes, 3 years now no berries. Also have a contender peach tree that was supposed to be self pollinating. Four years now, and over twelve feet tall and not even a blossom.

Had a cherry tree do that, turns out the scion (fruiting part of the graft) had died and the root stock had died.

 

[LBrandt]

Honey berries for sure, blueberries are a pain in the arse around here. Juneberries are great, but the birds raise hell with them at my place. Gooseberries are a novelty that wears off quickly.

I've been thinking about trying mulberry, but have no idea how they will do around here (Bismarck area).

Then you are going to need a monkey and a weasel. Now I cant get that little sing along out of my head Thanks.