Honeyberries

[barbender]

Are any of you familiar with honeyberries? Our 2 oldest daughters live in a small town near Duluth, that has a berry farm where they grow these berries. My oldest got us to go out and pick some yesterday. They look like a long cylindrical blueberry with a similar flavor. I saw it described as a cross between blueberries and Sweet Tarts candy, and that is pretty fitting. 

4 of us picked 27 pounds of them in about 2½ hours, which I imagine would've been 3-4 gallons by volume. The bushes there are about 9 years old, and 4' tall. 

Our now 14 year old son had gone down and stayed with his sisters last summer, and ended up picking at the berry farm a lot. He came home loaded with cash😂 The owners have a hard time finding anyone to pick berries, so I think a lot end up never getting picked. So I think they thought they hit the lottery when they met our kids, who have a berry picking obsession that I have shared with all of them😊 Our wild blueberry crop was a bust last year, because the proceeding winter had zero snow. That typically causes the fruiting buds to freeze hard and die. 

It is a really neat operation they have down at Farm Lola. They have the berry farm, growing strawberries, blueberries, and honeyberries. They have around 800 free range laying hens in mobile enclosures for egg sales. Then they also have an Air B n B cabin on site. They said they have people come and stay that are thrilled to watch an egg drop out of a chicken, a true case of agrotourism😊 

Back to the honeyberries- apparently the types being grown on the farm are native to Siberia. In reading about the species, there are supposed to be types native to North America as well- even in my area. Well I've trod all over the forests and swamps of northern MN; but I've never seen any🤷

My wife wants to start a berry farm. We'll see😊

[GAB]

My wife wants to start a berry farm. We'll see😊

With your sandy soil you are going to need a very very large pond just to keep a small area of plants alive.
Are you planning on purchasing some almost swamp land somewheres?
GAB

[barbender]

A swamp is never far away up here, Gerald 😊

[NewYankeeSawmill]

I've had good luck with raspberries and blackberries in all the climates I've lived in. Once settled they spread well and if they thrive will give a good harvest. Great for jams, fresh, etc. Don't get the thornless varieties if you have deer, however.
I miss having currants. I've tried a few times, too hot here, I need to find a shady place to plant them. They should do well by you. Gooseberries, too.

[trapper]

also thinking about the honeyberries.  Picked a coffee can of currants off my bush today.  Wife will use half and freeze the rest.   Red currants  just a few on the black I planted last year.  Plant a golden this year  Planted a mulberry thisyear  and has 3 berries got 1 that got ripe and beat the birds to.

[Otis1]

I have heard of honeyberry and I think some are also grown in northern Wisconsin for berry picking. 

I thought the berry looked familiar but a different color from something I'm used to seeing. So I looked it up and apparently it is actually a honeysuckle (Lonicera). The berries look like a blue version of our American fly honeysuckle, which isn't edible. 

[LeftFinger]

Look up Haskap berrys also called honeyberry

[SwampDonkey]

Haskaps up this way. There is a local U-Pick. I don't really care for them myself. I prefer a wild blueberry. 

[aigheadish]

I don't think I've heard of honeyberries but I like the sound of it. I'm a berry fan, and will eat just about any I see that are ripe in the yard. We've got some mulberry I made some jam from, a lot of wild raspberries that are tricky to find the ripening time of unless I watch them real hard, and I've got a blackberry starter going on the deck.

There is money in some berries. I'm aware of someone around here who grows Elderberry and makes tons of money with it. I think they sell a lot of starter plants and make preserves and jams and juices to sell at the farmer's markets. If I'm remembering correctly they are doing over well $100k a year in Elderberry.

[NewYankeeSawmill]

There is money in some berries. I'm aware of someone around here who grows Elderberry and makes tons of money with it. I think they sell a lot of starter plants and make preserves and jams and juices to sell at the farmer's markets. If I'm remembering correctly they are doing over well $100k a year in Elderberry.

That would be AMAZING!?! I may have to take a closer look at the few I have growing around the place. !

Blueberries seem to do well here in East TN despite the heat and poor soil. There's a place up the road from me with some acreage that planted over 100 blueberry bushes in rows over the course of several years. I talked to the owners, they did one row each year, about 20-25 bushes at a time, stretched across an acre of sunny-land in their front near the road. Years on now they have a U-Pick blueberry farm. About $8-12k per year in cash-income they told me. Nice little hit for them. Told me they planted the bushes when they were younger (and had the energy!), it provided their own berries and a little tractor money as they grew out their hobby-farm. Now that they're retired, it's a nice bump to their budget (fixed income on SS). I have to admit, now that I'm thinking about that stuff.... yeah, an extra bump of summer cash in retirement would be SWEET! The bushes take minimal maintenance once established, no chemical spraying, no bugs, minimum fertilizer here. Just mowing around them?

We have 25+ berry bushes scattered around the property already because we found some here when we bought it and we like them ourselves. I propagated a half-dozen blueberries this spring using the sand/dirt method, gosh it was easy. Cut, dip (rooting hormone), stick it in the dirt, done. 5 Out of the 6 made it. I also have some hydroponic and cloning experience from, uuhhh, my younger days, and have been propagating garden plants using rockwool cubes for a few years now. I've got space in the front of my property that's separate from the living space, right next to the driveway.... I think someone's trying to tell me to start a blueberry patch for retirement money?

[SwampDonkey]

If you buy one elderberry bush and get it going good, you can take cuttings off the last years growth around Feb and March and start new ones in a grow tent  or later in the year if propagating outside. They are just a weed and they grow like one to.  They are tedious to pick, but syrup and juice are expensive to buy. Love the syrup on ice cream, I usually mix blackberries in my syrup making. It's super dark purple, almost black. I make my syrup different than some, mine is thicker stuff. I boil it way down. You have to be careful and not make it so thick it will jell like jelly when cooled.    I use a food mill to get all the pulp, but no seeds and no skins. Gotta do that so you don't cook the seeds and spoil it.

[barbender]

NYS, your propagating and cloning skills show that all experience is useful😁

[aigheadish]

NewYankee, I feel similarly. I have a 2 acre field in the back, and when I first heard about these Elderberry sales I asked if any supplemental land was needed. Blueberries would be pretty cool too. We don't do anything with this field, it used to get hayed but I wasn't seeing anything from that. I've thought about an orchard but berries seem like a more manageable way to go. Watering is a little problematic but I could get a big tote to fill with water and leave it back there for the dry spells. Getting u-pick-it farm would be great. 

[Jeff]

This is interesting. These may be more suitable for me. I'm having trouble adjusting the ph in this clay for my blueberries, that really need around 5,  where it appears from a quick search the honeyberries are perfectly happy up to 7, which is what I have here in limestone country.

[SwampDonkey]

U of Saskatchewan plant breeder, Bob Bors , came up with a cross between the Japanese and Russian haskap varieties to get a plant that withstands -40C/F winters on the prairies. The word 'haskap' is Japanese for "berry of long life and good vision."    Be aware that the cedar waxwings might take a liking to them. 

[LeftFinger]

I have 3 bushes They are 2 ft high and have been for 8 yrs . The deer come into town and nibble them down every winter . What few berries they produce the birds get way before they're ripe.

[Onthesauk]

Last house I had about 35 high bush blueberries.  I use to mulch heavily with sawdust and some nitrogen.  We had masses of berries.  Never an issue with deer but some years the bears would simply sit down in the middle of a bush and eat his way around.  They did more damage then any of the critters. 

[NewYankeeSawmill]

I've thought about an orchard but berries seem like a more manageable way to go. Watering is a little problematic but I could get a big tote to fill with water and leave it back there for the dry spells. Getting u-pick-it farm would be great.

I've got grapes, apples, peaches, cherries and plums. ALL require regular spraying to survive, nevermind reap a harvest. The blueberries I do nothing to but water once in a while while fruiting - after harvest I ignore them except for a fall trim. This is key... ! The owners of the patch up the road said he uses a couple bags of 6-12-12 every spring, and thats about it. Very appealing! I had some of the soil here tested years ago when I was putting the pasture in @Jeff , 4.5. No wonder they do so well! Can't grow much of anything else in it, !

- K

[Jeff]

I've tried using vinegar and water to raise the ph around the plants, but that clay doent reall absorb it. I can test it and get it lowered, go out 2 days later and it has come back up. Ive started adding rotted wood that I find as mulch. Maybe over time It will get better.

I need to find some honeyberry plants somewhere!

[chep]

Here in Vermont there is a pest called blueberry drosophila fly. They ruin all the berries not covered by very fine nets. We cover our by late June.  Check your local ag agent before planting.
It is a major pest and don't believe  it has any organic controls. If you want to spray your berries with wierd stuff go for it, it's your life. I just can't imagine kids not eating berries straight off the bush
The only berries that don't turn to mush are the early berries. Anything past mid July are junk.
Blueberries also need good regular pruning,  plenty of acidic mulch and plenty of water.
People think it's easy money. I don't agree

[thecfarm]

I had a small field of low bush blue berries.
It's real crappy soil, I've dug   out of that field and it's about 2 inches of so called top soil and then nothing for soil.

The bushes really started to take over, so we mowed it all down.

[aigheadish]

I went out and mowed the walking path in the back field and found the wild raspberries are going bonkers. Nothing real tall but I've got a couple patches that are a good 20 of so feet around, unfortunately all the other junk has grown up around them too and may be choking them out a bit, so I attempted to release the biggest patch by mowing down around them. Not sure if that will help or hurt, but it'll probably make it easier for the deer to get to. 

[aigheadish]

The raspberry patch has now become a regular stopping point on my wife and I's walk around the field. The dogs were given a few ripe berries on our first trip around (I just started becoming a more regular walker with my wife), and now they just dive face first into any of the berries. I don't think they've found the thorns yet, but they will. 

[SwampDonkey]

Been picking some raspberries off my garden patch and freezing for jam later. Not a great crop this year. I never had time this spring to clean the weeds/grass out.