Do you grow fruit trees or berry bushes?

[Beekissed]

Have 12 or 13 apple trees and 2 peach trees. Two raspberry plants I got last year from a good friend but they've yet to bear. Scads of wild blackberry back of the land but they haven't been tended to in many a long year, so they only bear small but numerous berries that the wild animals get to before we do. A couple of persimmon trees that are so incredible tall that no one could get the fruit until it drops and then the wild ones get it.

Got wild cherry trees all over but ditto on the wild animals...too tall for any harvesting of any kind.

We forage for mountain apples each year if they have any....last year not a single tree of many thousands had any fruit on them. A late frost got all the blossoms last year.

 

[mythreesons290322]

That is awesome beekissed!

 

[mythreesons290322]

I forage the wild apple trees because my trees aren’t mature enough to produce... I don’t know about you all but this one wild apple tree I found last year has the best tasting apple Ive ever eaten..have no idea what kind it is but doesn’t matter to me it’s delicious.

I made applesauce, apple butter, apple caramel butter, apple pie filling, apple juice, dehydrated apple slices and made apple cider vinegar all from this particular tree..as long as this tree is around and it’s pretty old or we don’t get a early frost this is the tree for my apple products.

I also have a wild blackberry patch on my family’s old property that me and my kids have been picking from for years..it’s endless blackberries from this patch and it give’s us more then we would ever need..I also have my own blackberry bushes that are thornless..I just wished my family liked them more..they don’t like the seeds so I wasted my time canning a many jars of pie filling and jam for them not to care for it this year I’m going to deseed it. I also made blackberry brandy that is absolutely delicious. I hadn’t thought about using my steam juicer until just now to make juice from them..hmmm.

 

[mythreesons290322]

Also we forage blackcaps for our years supply of jam which in my opinion is the best jam in the world.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Blackberry brandy? YUM - that sounds awesome!

 

[sumi]

I also made blackberry brandy that is absolutely delicious.

Please tell us how you did this? I'm not a big fan of hard liquor, but this sounds really good!

 

[mythreesons290322]

Semi~ I have no idea where I got the recipe sorry..You can google it and that will give you a variety of recipes to choose from.

 

[tortoise]

Holy moly, 400 blueberries bushes do you own a u-pick or sell your berry’s?

The previous owner of this farm was trying to establish a u-pick. We may be forced to do that as they continue to mature. We might do farmer's market or sell canned products under cottage industry laws. IDK, we'll cross that bridge when we get there!

They're high-bush blueberries, so they will get about 6 feet tall. They're about 4 feet tall and only 25 plants (one row) that is older produces very well. It's still overwhelming! We've been here 4 years and last year was the first that I was able to prune all of them. Fortunately, at least 1/4 of them are still young enough they don't get pruned.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I can't even imagine trying to take care of that many bushes! Hope they repay you when they are mature by making you lots of moolah!

 

[Britesea]

It's easy to make blackberry brandy (or liqueur)... just wash the blackberries and put them in a jar and cover with brandy (cheap is ok for this) although I prefer golden rum as it seems to taste more like fresh blackberries to me. Let it sit in your closet or some other dark place for a couple of months, then add simple syrup (2parts sugar to 1part water) to taste. That's all there is to it! I've done the same for quince, crab apple, and plum.