Little Susie Homemaker

Tag: haskaps

  • Garden Update – June 2024

    June has arrived and it’s been beautiful! The garden is growing, but I’m not expecting much this season. Thankfully the yard has a LOT of perennial plants which are producing well!

    I took these pictures at the end of the week, left to go backpacking for the weekend and came home to quite a bit of progress in the berries!

    Boysenberries
    Currants
    Honey Berries (Haskaps)

    Just today, I picked over a half pound of honey berries (haskaps). There are more on the bushes that will be ready for harvest in the next couple of days.

    Some of the boysenberries and raspberries are starting to turn. I think they will be ready earlier this last year.

    Alpine Strawberries
    Blueberries
    Raspberries

    The more standard berries are ripening as well. I’ve picked about 5 alpine strawberries, and about an ounce of raspberries. Just today, we picked 2 blueberries! I’m always excited when things start coming in and there’s some production in the garden.

    Apples
    Thyme

    For the other stuff that returns or grows every year, our apples are coming in well on 2 of our 3 trees. The tree in the middle was pruned quite a bit this winter, so I think it’ll be fine next year.

    The thyme has blossomed and looks beautiful! I’ll try harvesting some of the stalks that haven’t bloomed to dry for use as spices this fall.

    Now for the garden, I’ll start with what is doing really well! Peas and potatoes!! We have blossoms on both, but peas are starting to ripen.

    Have you ever smelled a potato blossom? I wish I could provide you with a scratch and sniff picture because they smell AMAZING!

    Peas
    Potato Blossoms

    The garden rows are still looking rather pathetic. But, so be it. The radishes I had planted went to flower, so I pulled them up. I would say I harvested probably a total of 7 radishes. The beets that were planted at the same time as the radishes just didn’t grow. I have one that grew to about 3 inches and stopped. And several others that grew to about an inch tall and stopped.

    Once I harvested the radishes, I cut of the stalks and threw them on top of the garden to let them rot back into the soil.

    The asparagus barely came up with a whopping total of 6 stalks but what came up grew and is going to seed. I’m hoping that it will help replenish the crowns underground and we’ll get a lot more next year.

    The spinach has bolted and is either going to flower or just go to seed. I’ll be pulling out the spinach later this week. I’ll plant more in September when things get cooler again.

    I also got the tomatoes and peppers I had started from seed moved into their final spots. We’ll see how they do. We just don’t get warm enough for most tomatoes and peppers.

    There is plenty of room to get some things planted for fall. The potatoes in the garden are doing well. There’s a small patch of peas that are about a month behind the other peas. And the black beans seem to be coming out of their slug-eaten state and are growing new leaves.

    Black Beans
    Spinach, Asparagus, Beets
    Peas, Potatoes, Tomatoes, Peppers

    We also have some delicata squash starting and some Peruvian tubers planted that are doing well. The tubers were done last year and were kept in the fridge to plant again this year. We’ll see how they do. That is one of the ‘exotic’ plants my hubby likes to try out!

    Delicata Squash
    Peruvian Tubers

    And finally, I threw a bunch of old seed packets into a section of the yard that the bunnies can get at. I figured if something grew, then the bunnies could feast. It looks like we have some cilantro starting in that section. Feast away bunnies, cilantro is gross!!

    There you have it. The garden is doing its garden thing and I’m waiting patiently for it to need me. See you next month with the next update!

  • Berries in bloom

    “Anyway, like I was sayin’, shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey’s uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that’s about it.” Bubba from Forrest Gump

    When someone asks what berries we have in the backyard, I suddenly feel like Bubba from Forrest Gump when I start listing out all the berries we have.

    My husband loves having unique plants in the back, plus things that will flower that the hummingbirds, mason bees and other neighborhood bees can eat from. We have quite a variety in the back yard.

    Before I met him, he’d walk around the backyard in the summer and have dessert. Now that I live here, I harvest the berries for us to fully enjoy through the year.

    In fact, I still have 1 bag of raspberries from last year and just opened the last bag of strawberries that I picked at a nearby farm.

    I love the idea of having an edible yard with a lot of things that come back every year. Seeing how my vegetables are extremely pathetic (its old seeds – at least that what’s I’m claiming), having perennial plants around help with the overall harvest.

    This is the first spring that I’m paying much attention to the blossoming and ripening of the berries instead of just the harvesting!

    Here is where our berries are at beginning(ish) of June!

    The earliest to harvest are honey berries, or haskaps.

    Honey berries, or haskaps, are the first to ripen in June. They grow under the leaves and look like an elongated blueberry. I find them very tart and pick them, freeze them and then throw them into smoothies over the winter. But it is fun to have something non-rhubarb to harvest early in the season.

    Next up are blueberries which are already starting to ripen and turn colors. (do you see that bit of pink in the picture below?)

    This year, we have 2 new blueberry plants which are pink lemonade blueberries. They will be pink when ripe, so I think it may be a “by taste” test to know when they’re ripe. (that is an affiliate link)

    One of the fun berries we grow, but they are a bear to harvest are the evergreen huckleberries.

    These are actually pretty easy to harvest, but you end up picking up a ton of debris as you do it. It’s the cleaning that is really the chore. But, these are fun tiny little berries, like miniature blueberries. I have gotten almost a gallon zip bag full the last 2 years. That leaves plenty of berries on the plants for the birds to pick at too!

    We are in the second year of transplanted ever-bearing raspberries. I pruned them back in the early spring just as leaves were starting and pulled out all the canes that weren’t growing any. Ever-bearing will produce a spring AND a fall crop (first year canes vs. second year canes). After the second-year canes produce, those canes have finished their lifecycle.

    You can see the berries starting to grow from where the blossoms were. They’re so cute!

    I love strawberries (as an adult). Growing up, my parents had a small u-pick strawberry patch, so of course I had to help pick berries. At the time, I hated strawberries. Boy am I glad my tastebuds changed with age!

    I have a spot in the yard that is fairly shaded, so we have planted alpine strawberry varieties (mignonette). They’re fairly novel and oh so tiny, but I’m looking forward to eating the couple of tiny berries these will produce. (that’s an affiliate link)

    (They are surrounded by chicken wire to keep the bunnies out!)

    One of the berries that I’m surprised at how much I like are boysenberries. Think huge, long blackberries!!! I made jam with them last year, both by itself and in a triple berry blend. I also threw them in a bag in the freezer as I harvested them (at least the ones my husband didn’t eat right as I brought them inside) along with tayberries & loganberries for a mixed berry blend. (affiliate link above)

    We have several other kinds not listed or shown. “We have blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, boysenberries, honey berries, tayberries, logan berries, goji berries, lingonberries, huckleberries, strawberries. That’s all I have to say about that!” ~Little Susie Homemaker