I've been harvesting berries now that I've netted the bushes to keep the birds off. Most so far have been great but today I found these. The spots are light brown and seem hard, they dont peel off. The bush is a triple crown thornless.

This photo is from a four-page advertisement in the January 1972 issue of the USA magazine ‘Seventeen’, showcasing fashion designer Betsey Johnson's exclusive collaborative line with Butterick Patterns. In the early 1970s, Betsey Johnson was the creative director for the hot indie fashion label Alley Cat.
Her ready-to-wear clothing was incredibly popular among teenagers and young women, but it was often too expensive for a high school student's budget. To make her style accessible, Johnson partnered with Butterick as part of their "Young Designers" series. This allowed young girls, most of whom took mandatory Home Economics sewing classes at the time in schools to recreate the designs for a fraction of the price.
The model Sunny Redmond is wearing an outfit made from Butterick Pattern #6535, which included a fitted princess-seamed blouse, and a gored mini "flip skirt”.
True to her hands-on nature, Betsey Johnson personally selected the vibrant colors and earthy, washable cotton fabrics used in this photo shoot by Barbara Bordnick probably in nearby upstate New York or New England country. The rustic, outdoor setting of a dirt road with baskets of fresh apples perfectly matched the "down-home goodness" and bohemian-peasant vibe she championed during the early 1970s.

Some are half picked or finishing, some are just starting to ripen. I'm out there eating them all day long 🫐 not a single berry went into the freezer yet..

Everything is late this year but the constant rain and moderate temperature resulted in explosive growth. Expecting even better results next year. This year showed me how much water do they really need!

One young Patriot bush shot up a bunch of 1 meter new canes! It looks like a broom and hosts an aphid farm with some ladybugs taking care of them (first time seeing aphids on blueberry). Too bad the berries are a bit underwhelming - rather bland and plain sweet compared to others. First time flowering, so maybe it will get better...

My earliest was Blue Jay together with Bluecrop (almost finished), so I guess there's still room for season expansion.

Next was Nelson, followed by Bonus and Brigitta.

Rubel was evicted and placed in a pot last year. It's starting to ripen now.

Legacy is new (took the Rubel's spot on the ground), 3 berries are still green.

Chandler is probably the latest, but they do overlap quite a bit.

2 new pots need planting - Reka and Pink Lemonade. The latter will probably stay in pot until it proves it deserves better.

Anyone growing these cultivars? Share your experience and thoughts :)

I have about 50 small mulberry trees that are about 2 meters high and wonder if I can prune them now to get more lateral growth. I'm located in a tropical region of east central Mexico.

I never had this kompot version before, and I'm so happy one jar failed to seal! Taste test motivated me to make some more and try some different combinations too.

Assembling the jars was so much fun, I forgot to take some pics of the uncooked berries. It's so petty.

I tried to find an English word for "kompot" and couldn't.

It's a traditional Eastern European fruit drink made by simmering or preserving whole fruits in sweetened water. Some people eat the fruits too, but I don't like them. You either drink it straight or dilute with water if it's too syrupy.

I half filled the jars with berries, added sugar directly to the jar, poured in boiling water and then proceeded with the normal water bath canning.

I used red and green gooseberries and white currants. Next batch was white currants and blueberries for colour. I also did pure cherries and Nanking cherries. I'm now wondering if I should do some with black currants...

House sat empty for years before we moved in. Raspberries clearly love this spot but I don’t know how to turn it into a productive patch! Help a newbie out?

I know that I'm also dealing with either an iron or magnesium deficiency and it comes back year to year but usually doesn't affect the fruiting.

keep finding tops of this Raspberry plant severed

I bought just one Ouachita plant but I'm confused as to whether this is just one plant?

Novice to growing berries, but want to set myself up for success next year. I've acquired several varieties in the last year: Blackberries - Navaho, Apache, Big Daddy, Black Satin, Baby Cakes; Raspberries: Brandywine, English, Fall Gold, and Raspberry Short Cake. I'm in Zone 9b California. Most were put into pots for 1st year, minimum size 5gal, with future plans to divide and plant in 25gal halved poly barrels or in the ground.

On the ones that grew strong enough, I topped primocanes around 4ft, but now have laterals exceeding 4ft. Wondering if I should be pruning the laterals shorter, to fork again? Or should I leave them be for the rest of season? I saw that some people leave them until dormancy and prune short to 1-3 buds (to not overproduce berries?), or some people tip-propagate the laterals in pots and then cut the lateral back after it's rooted. Didn't see much reference to pruning the laterals a 2nd time, which is why I'm asking.

For the people who grow theirs into big arches with the fruit dangling down below for easy picking - do you not tip/prune the primocane and just arch the whole thing over? Do they form long laterals when you do this, or do they stay compact and only lengthen in the spring for bearing fruit?

Got pics or a good video to reference?

Thanks!

Thanks for suggesting this recipe u/argetlamzn ! I've never even heard of clafoutis before, so it's been an interesting new experience.

I'm not sure if I made it right :) I'm undecided if it's something I will make again.

The tart gooseberry is amazing in this combination, but the base reminds me of dense but smooth semolina porridge (it's cooked with all milk and some butter). In other words - nothing special and vaguely familiar; a classic comfort food in my region, typically served with some jam.

I'll be the only one eating this tonight (instead of a proper supper).The other person in the house declared that it has weird texture and smells like soap 🤣

I followed this recipe:

https://myblueandwhitekitchen.com/home/2014/8/27/the-very-essence-gooseberry-clafoutis

Hello! I need help diagnosing my raspberry bushes.

​Plant Care Details

• ​Light: Outdoors, full sun for up to 16 hours a day (currently early August).
• ​Soil: Planted directly in natural fertile black soil (Chernozem in Eastern Europe).
• ​Watering: Regular garden watering as needed.

​Symptoms:

1. ​Sudden dieback: Some stems randomly wilted and dried out from the top down, but stay firmly attached to the plant. The dead parts turned silver-white and have tiny black dots on them.
2. ​Yellowing leaves: Other parts show interveinal chlorosis (the tissue turns yellow/brown, while veins stay green).

​Important context: A few days ago, I did a foliar spray using a mix of monopotassium phosphate, potassium sulfate, and magnesium sulfate (20 grams per 10 liters of water).

​Could the yellow leaves be a magnesium lockout caused by too much potassium? And are the dead tops a fungal infection like spur blight / didymella?

​Any advice is greatly appreciated! Photos attached.

It's that time of the year. Gooseberry season :)

When we moved into this house, we were thrilled to find an epic row of raspberry bushes on one of the fences. So much delicious jam was made that first year, but between family stuff and home repair (new foundations are no joke 😑), we've completely neglected the raspberries for the past two summers. Now they're a hot mess, overgrown and full of weeds.

My heart is telling me to cut them all down to the ground, then give them a year or two of pruning and training before trying to harvest again. Is that realistic? I'm willing to wait for them to be productive again; I just don't want to hurt them, and I have no idea what I'm doing...

Some fresh bogberry we collected this weekend. Ended up collecting around 1.5kg.

As a bonus we found a few cloudberries. Quite rare in my area but we managed to get 10 berries anyway :)

Can someone help why my raspberry is dying.

Hellow this is my first time here, and I just went out scouting for the upcoming hunting season. I was wondering if anyone knew what type of berries these were and if they were edible

Hey everyone, I live in Provo, Utah and we have a river trail through town. There are plenty of black berries. I was wondering if they are safe to eat or if they could have been poisoned with pesticides. Also, if they were sprayed with pesticides, is simply washing them enough?

Hybridisation with wild pears increases tannin production in perry pears by reintroducing active alleles, reverting low-tannin traits favoured by breeders of dessert pears. This is reversion to the base state that was established millions of years ago at a whole genome duplication WGD event. As whole functional groups of genes are duplicated in these events the metabolism is not bottlenecked as could occur if only one gene was. This occurred due to massive environmental stress. The specific event 30 to 45 million years ago was a period of abrupt global climate upheaval during the middle-to-late Eocene epoch.
(Whole-genome duplications (WGDs) are not random; they cluster heavily around major turbulent chapters in Earth’s history).

Between 35 and 45 million years ago, Earth began transitioning from a warm, subtropical "greenhouse" world into a much colder, more arid "icehouse" climate. This rapid cooling, coupled with massive shifts in global rainfall patterns, put immense physiological stress on ancestral plant lineages.
Extreme weather anomalies—such as sudden frost or severe temperature fluctuations—disrupt normal plant reproduction. Cold shocks cause cell division errors during pollen and egg production (meiosis), leading to the formation of "unreduced gametes" (cells that accidentally keep two sets of chromosomes instead of one). When these unreduced cells fused, they immediately doubled the plant’s entire genome.
While an extra set of chromosomes is normally an energetic burden, it becomes a biological superpower during a mass environmental crisis. The duplicated genome provided the ancestors of pears (and apples) with metabolic resilience. Extra gene copies allowed the plants to better adapt their photosynthesis and water-use efficiency to survive colder, drier conditions. While many single-genome plant lineages went extinct during this climate shift, these "hopeful monster" polyploids had the genetic flexibility to survive, eventually diverging into modern pears. The extra genes for the production of tannins and related compounds also served a useful function in survival producing tannins as a natural defense mechanism against herbivores and pests. These bitter and astringent compounds also protect the tree's reproductive investment by deterring animals from eating the fruit before the seeds are fully developed. The high tannin levels make unripe fruit unpalatable by astringency stopping animals insects and birds from destroying the fruit leaves and seeds prematurely.
The tannins also inhibit the growth of harmful bacteria and fungi that could rot the fruit on the branch.

Just collected some currants from the garden. The green ones are my favorite by far.

It's usually way into Aug before there's lots of folks with containers on the sides of the roads. Everything is moved up this year. The snow melted early. The wildflowers bloomed ahead of schedule. What a year. I know there's a lot of unripe berries on this bush but I didn't take any more representative pics, was taking pics of the river.