Raspberry...Blackberry...Blueberry...More Berries

Berries with ice cream, muffin, pancake, fruit salad, you name it...we are having berries everyday! What are you harvesting this week?

Blueberries

Random Pictures: Lime, Raspberries, House Plant, Squash

Unknown indoor plant, bought it from Lowe's clearance section a year ago.

See... it has tiny black seeds!3 ft lime tree starts having tiny fruits. After seeing Prue's balcony size lemon tree, it inspires me to get a similar size disease free lemon tree.

The raspberries start to change color, probably I can harvest fresh berry fruits for several weeks.
Surprise! The squash starting to bloom...soon we will have something to cook!

It's Time to Harvest the Blackberry and Raspberry

I bought the Brazos Blackberry (Rubus Ursinus 'Brazos') and Latham Red Raspberry (Rubus Idaeus 'Latham') from a local nursery on March 8 for $5 (clearance). See the progress on April 13, 25, and May 19. It only takes 3 months, I'm now harvesting the fruits. The blackberry plant is now 3ft tall and will produce fruits every year, it's a great buy, totally worth every single penny!
Brazos Blackberry (Rubus Ursinus 'Brazos') with large clusters of edible fruit








Some blackberries and raspberries




Ice cream with blackberries in a dissert glass bowl





More Ice cream with blackberries... hmmmmmmmm good for summer!

Berries: Raspberry, Strawberry...

Berry bushes are easy to grow, but they take maintenance to keep producing sweet, delicious berries. Raspberries prefer full sunlight and grow best in well-drained and sandy loam soils. Raspberries needs regular simple pruning to keep bearing large, healthy crops and to prevent them from taking over the garden. If garden space is limited, berries can grow in containers. The crowns and roots of raspberry plants are perennial, but individual canes live two years. First-year canes have green stems, while second-year canes have a thin, brown bark covering them and will produce fruit.
Strawberry plants don't live forever. Renovating of strawberry bed is required in order to keep it producing delicious strawberries as long as possible. Strawberries are shallow-rooted plants, and start to slow in fruit production if they are allowed to dry out. During the winter, dig the strawberries plants out of the urn-shaped pots, place them in plastic pots, and bury it into the ground with their rims at soil level.

Berries: Cancer-fighting super foods?
8,270 Berries Recipes
Guide to Cornell berry expertise

Berries & Deer Resistant Plants

I bought 4 new berries for my garden:
1) Brazos Blackberry (Rubus Ursinus 'Brazos')
- Flowers early spring, easily planted in hedgerows, large clusters of edible fruit that ripens in late spring.
2) Bluecrop Blueberry (Vaccinium Corymbosum 'Bluecrop'
- Dceiduous, very productive, dependable shrub with large, firm bright blue berries.
3) Northland Blueberry (Vaccinium x 'Northland')
- Deciduous, ideal for fresh eating, bears large, light blue berries with abundant white flowers.
4) Latham Red Raspberry (Rubus Idaeus 'Latham')
- This type of raspberry is disease-resistant and productive, deciduous, flavorful, aromatic, good texture, berries ripen in late June.

Berry anthocyanins as novel antioxidants in human health and disease prevention

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17533652
"Edible berries, a potential source of natural anthocyanin antioxidants, have demonstrated a broad spectrum of biomedical functions. These include cardiovascular disorders, advancing age-induced oxidative stress, inflammatory responses, and diverse degenerative diseases."


New deer resistant plants in my garden:
Dusty Miller (Centaurea Cineraria)
- Fuzzy, silver-gray leaves, bushy, compact habit, mounding annual, adds color contrast to beds.

...of course, deers don't like green onion! Other deer resistant trees, shrubs, annuals, perennials, and bulbs:

Trees

• Bottlebrush Buckeye
• Downy Serviceberry
• Shadbush
• Allegheny Serviceberry
• Chinese Paper Birch
• Heritage Birch
• Paper Birch
• Japanese Falsecypress
• Japanese Cedar
• Colorado Blue Spruce
• Scotch Pine
• Douglas Fir

Shrubs

• Bald cypress (Taxodium species)
• Bayberry (Myrica species)
• Cinquefoil (Potentilla species)
• False cypress (Chamaecyparis species)
• Forsythia (Forsythia species)
• Fringe tree (Chionanthus species)
• Spirea (Spiraea species)
• Spruce (Picea species)
• White forsythia (Abelio-phyllum distichum)
• Pawpaw
• Barberry
• Boxwood
• Caryopteria
• American Bittersweet
• Red Osier Dogwood
• Japanese Plum-Yew
• Russian Olive
• Creeping Wintergreen
• Rose of Sharon
• John T. Morris Holly
• Lydia Morris Hollies
• Leucothoe
• European Privet
• Japanese Andromeda
• Common Buckthorn
• Blueberry Elder
• Dwarf Sweet Christmas Box

Annuals, Perennials, and Bulbs

• Yarrow
• Monkshood
• Ageratum
• Star of Persia
• Daffodil Garlic
• Lily Leek
• Japanese Anemone
• Rue Anemone
• Common Dill
• Columbine
• Basket-of-Gold
• Snapdragon
• Rock-cress
• Jack-in-the-Pulpit
• Rock Cress
• Berginia
• Plumbago
• Snakeroot
• Colchicum
• Colchicum
• Larkspur
• Lily-of-the-valley
• Threadleaf Coreopsis
• Neopolitan Cyclamen
• Bleeding Heart
• Foxglove
• Wood Fern
• Purple Coneflower
• Barrenwort
• Euphorbia
• Fritillary
• Sweet Woodruff
• Glory Lily
• Stella de Oro Daylily
• Dame's Rocket
• Hyacinth
• Deadnettle
• Lavender
• Toadflax
• Sweet Alyssum
• Rose Champion
• Ostrich Fern
• Daffodil
• Flowering Tobacco
• Royal Fern
• Allegheny Spurge
• Japanese Spurge
• Oriental Poppy
• Scented Geranium
• Russian Sage
• Buttercup
• Rhubarb
• Coneflower
• Sage
• Lavender Cotton
• Squill
• Lamb's Ears
• Marigold
• Common Tansy
• Thyme
• Foam Flower
• Nasturtium
• Yucca