Berries

Black raspberries are starting to ripen nicely. They came up wild in the fence row, along with some stinging nettle and trumpet wine.

Picked 9 cups of blackberries. Added 9 cups of water, mashed them and brought mixture to gentle boil. Then strained, added 1/2 cup of sugar and a fresh squeezed lemon. Add gin/vodka, ice and bit of tonic water. Delicious.

Just picked about 15-20 lbs (6, 1 gallon ziplocks) of blackberries, going to make a bunch of seedless blackberry jam. This year we had a wet winter and spring and the berries look great, very plump and juicy! Last year the berries were small and seedy and didn't have much juice.

You see the oddest things picking berries. A snake on a leaf on a fence wire.

Ozumoz66 said:

You see the oddest things picking berries. A snake on a leaf on a fence wire.
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Snakes love the top of wire fences that are grown over in vines, I almost picked a white oak picking grapes.

Well it’s getting to be that time of the year again, time to weed, top dress and fertilize my blueberry bushes. I use homemade compost for top dressing and ammonium sulfate for fertilizer. What do y’all do to kick off your berries ?

Bareback said:

Well it’s getting to be that time of the year again, time to weed, top dress and fertilize my blueberry bushes. I use homemade compost for top dressing and ammonium sulfate for fertilizer. What do y’all do to kick off your berries ?

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I'm here wondering what strain. Who was the breeder and do they have a real blueberry nose to them. Then realized you meant the actual berry ROFLMAO! I need more coffee, good morning.

Just finished mine put some Sulfur and Leaf Mulch around them.

Working on a 4X12 Strawberry Bed.

Bareback said:

Well it’s getting to be that time of the year again, time to weed, top dress and fertilize my blueberry bushes. I use homemade compost for top dressing and ammonium sulfate for fertilizer. What do y’all do to kick off your berries ?

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Are we supposed to fertilize berries while it's still winter, or are you not in winter where you are?

Bareback said:

Well it’s getting to be that time of the year again, time to weed, top dress and fertilize my blueberry bushes. I use homemade compost for top dressing and ammonium sulfate for fertilizer. What do y’all do to kick off your berries ?

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I use holly-tone on mine. Sister tells me when is the right time to do it, and a couple three months later I get around to it. lol

For the last week I've been planting loblolly pines down at the riverfield. The huckleberry bushes are in full bloom. Last year we had a late freeze that killed all the wild berries and most of the tame ones. I'm hoping we skip that this time around.

injinji said:

I use holly-tone on mine. Sister tells me when is the right time to do it, and a couple three months later I get around to it. lol

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I was reading the Npk on the ammonium sulfate and the holly tone yesterday. The ammonium is 21-0-0 but I don’t see that info on the holly tone but both have pictures of blueberries on the bags and both talk about the sulfur content. The ammonium was recommended to me by someone who has a lot of bushes but honestly I don’t think it matters.

Bareback said:

Well it’s getting to be that time of the year again, time to weed, top dress and fertilize my blueberry bushes. I use homemade compost for top dressing and ammonium sulfate for fertilizer. What do y’all do to kick off your berries ?

Click to expand...

Triple 10 or acidic holly tone for fruit when warm enough to scratch in top layer

These will be in full bloom in a week or so.
These plums will be in bloom this weekend.
We’ll probably get another frost or snow and kill all the plum and peach blooms/fruit but the blueberries will do just fine.
If this weather holds I might put tomatoes in the ground in early March, and pepper in early April. I already have over a hundred tomatoes started in trays and about 30 peppers.

Bareback said:

I was reading the Npk on the ammonium sulfate and the holly tone yesterday. The ammonium is 21-0-0 but I don’t see that info on the holly tone but both have pictures of blueberries on the bags and both talk about the sulfur content. The ammonium was recommended to me by someone who has a lot of bushes but honestly I don’t think it matters.

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Fwiw I think Holly-tone and Berry-tone are the same product, just marketed differently. Same ingredients and % of everything on the label

raggyb said:

Are we supposed to fertilize berries while it's still winter, or are you not in winter where you are?

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We had a really cold snap from Christmas though the end of January but it is in the 50-70f most days now and I don’t know if it will get cold again or not but I’m in the Deep South so I have to get the fruit trees and vines ready. I usually do it in January but I didn’t have time or something else was going on when I did.

Bareback said:

View attachment 5370797
These will be in full bloom in a week or so. View attachment 5370798
These plums will be in bloom this weekend.
We’ll probably get another frost or snow and kill all the plum and peach blooms/fruit but the blueberries will do just fine.
If this weather holds I might put tomatoes in the ground in early March, and pepper in early April. I already have over a hundred tomatoes started in trays and about 30 peppers.

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We grow about 30 tomatoes for a lady. We do same with our blueberry bushes by adding pine needles for the acid

Dboybudz said:

We grow about 30 tomatoes for a lady. We do same with our blueberry bushes by adding pine needles for the acid

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I won’t try to grow all the tomatoes I started, I’ll gift them to anyone who wants them, co-workers or neighbors. I rebuilt some grow lights recently and put LED corn cob bulbs in them just as an experiment and it worked fantastic that’s actually why I started so many.

Bareback said:

We had a really cold snap from Christmas though the end of January but it is in the 50-70f most days now and I don’t know if it will get cold again or not but I’m in the Deep South so I have to get the fruit trees and vines ready. I usually do it in January but I didn’t have time or something else was going on when I did.

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ok thanks then and saaalute!

Bareback said:

I was reading the Npk on the ammonium sulfate and the holly tone yesterday. The ammonium is 21-0-0 but I don’t see that info on the holly tone but both have pictures of blueberries on the bags and both talk about the sulfur content. The ammonium was recommended to me by someone who has a lot of bushes but honestly I don’t think it matters.

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For several years I've been trying to get closer to organic. But I ran out of mushroom compost last summer and the mushroom farm in Quincy has gone out of business. So I bought a bag of 8/8/8. So far I've used it in my remote gardens, but I guess I'll be using it in the veggie garden this year. A buck a pound for the holly-tone is just too much for my mental wellbeing with as much garden as I have.