Berry Nice

The black raspberries are usually ready to pick by Memorial Day weekend. They're a little late this year, but the berries are starting to ripen. I picked a handful this evening. We'll be eating berry cobbler by the end of the week!

Check this out ... the wineberries are making fruit! I cut the plants WAY back last fall, basically starting over in the berry patch. I did not anticipate getting any fruit this year. I thought wineberries produced fruit on second year canes, just like raspberries:

"The crowns and roots of raspberry plants are perennial, but individual canes live two year. Each spring, the plants produce canes (suckers) from buds on the crown and on underground lateral stems. These canes grow vegetatively during the first season, overwinter, and produce fruit during the summer of the second year, while new canes emerge to provide a crop for the following year. Second-year canes die shortly after fruiting." University of Maine Cooperative Extension Publications 

Fruit this year will be a welcome surprise.

The bush cherries have totally outgrown their space. They're impinging on the blueberries, shading them out. We plan to prune the plants way back and relocate them. Although the bushes did bloom this spring, they did not set fruit. I suspect the cool, wet conditions we had interfered with pollination in some way. No fruit, no sense in waiting to get some of these branches out of the way.

In the meantime, the blueberries are loaded with fruit!