Non alpines: other types of gardening: growing veg.etc for instance

[John85]

Lesley,
Can you name a few varieties please,may be I can find some of those in Europe?
With fruits that size the picking'll be easy too!

[annew]

What is the best cultivar of blackberry?All the thornless cv that I tried (the last one was Hull) were disappointing .The taste of the related Boysenberry was not better.Can you suggest a very tasty one please ?

I grow 'Loch Ness', a thornless variety with relatively short canes which I fan-train on a fence. The fruits are delicious and prolific. I believe there is a double pink-flowered sport of it called, I think, Loch Maree, which sounds pretty.

[Lesley Cox]

Lesley,
Can you name a few varieties please,may be I can find some of those in Europe?
With fruits that size the picking'll be easy too!

I can't today but I'll ask on Saturday at my market. There are 3 boysenberry growers there. Season finished now of course though we can still get frozen ones. I usually do half a dozen preseving jars, for specieal treats through the winter.

[Diane Whitehead]

The best hybrid blackberry is "Cascade".  It is also the earliest.  It has the same wonderful
flavour as our wild creeping blackberry, Rubus ursinus.

I have pulled out boysenberry and loganberry.  Well, I should say I continue to
pull them out every year, and have done so for about 30 years without success.

[Diane Whitehead]

Peppers require a long time to grow before they can be put out
in the garden, so I usually start them in February or March.

I read an article in a magazine in which the author had tried speeding
up the germination of pepper seeds, and found that putting them in
a plastic bag and rolling them with a rolling pin before sowing them in
a warm place was helpful.  That was an easy thing to do, so I took
the magazine back to the library and got started on my pepper seeds.
I found that rolling was detrimental and was prepared to send my results
to the author, but can't find that magazine.  Ah well.  I'll report a few of
the results here.

I treated 60 Anaheim seeds three different ways plus a control group.
Within four days I had these results:
rubbed on a pumice:  5/15 had germinated
control group - nothing done:  3/15 had germinated
rolled with rolling pin: 2/15 had germinated
nipped with nail clippers: 1/15 had germinated.

Anaheim was the only one I treated four ways as two of the treatments
were time-consuming.

Others I just rolled or did nothing.  Here is a typical result:

Early Cal Wonder after four days:
control group - nothing done:  21/30 had germinated
rolled with rolling pin: 2/30 had germinated

Germination in the examples above meant that the seed had
a noticeable radicle, not that the cotyledons had emerged.

Now, almost two weeks after sowing, there are little green
seedlings but the difference continues, so it is not just that
rolling delays growth, it seems to halt it completely.

Now, where is that magazine?

[John85]

Hello Lesley,
Have you been to the market,any boysenberry grower there?

[Lesley Cox]

Not a lot of joy John. It seems the two most grown commercially are Tasman and Mapua which I think are both raised here but not absolutely certain. Tasman is thornless and Mapua nearly so.

I had one in my previous garden trained on a wooden fence. It was vicious but worth it for the fruit. I'll keep asking. Two of the three growers were away on Saturday.

[Anthony Darby]

I hadn't heard of Boysenberry until I came to NZ. It is an American hybrid with raspberry, blackberry and loganberry (also an American hybrid) in it. Interestingly, Wilkin's of Tiptree, Essex grow most fruits on their farms but always bought their rasps from Scotland. My favourite was "Little Scarlet" strawberry jam. A jar (8oz?)of Wilkin's mulberry,another of my favourites and which they grow right by the jam factory, is NZ$25 here in Auckland!

[Lesley Cox]

In general for small soft fruits of the Rosaceae, the colder the climate, the better the plants and the fruit which would be why the Essex place bought in raspberries from Scotland. We can buy vars now bred for the warmer N.I climates but though they have a longer shelf life and tolerate warmer conditions, they don't have the flavour of the older vars. Ain't it always the same, whether tomatoes, strawberries, whatever. As soon as the shelf life is extended, the flavour is lost.

I have a small black mulberry tree, Morus nigra, but too small to fruit yet. The fruit appears at the market from Central Otago but I'm pretty sure those are M. alba. Jam can be bought in small quantities, 500gm jar for $6-8. Haven't seen any yet this year.

[John85]

About another hybrid berry.I have been trying to buy the thornless form of the tayberry:Buckingham.I ordered it three times from three different places and three times i got the normal spiny one that I already had.Therefore may I ask if there is a member who has one and would be willing to root me a layer.

[annew]

I have one, and can layer you a bit to send you next autumn.

[John85]

Thank you Anne ,that is very kind!!The tips root very easily.

[arillady]

This forum should be named: Ask and ye shall receive.

[John85]

What is the sweetest tomato variety?Not only the cherry type but also the big ones please.

[Gerdk]

Yesterday a friend showed me this nice sight which I want to share with other forumists

Apricots in the Stubaital/Tyrol

- called 'Marillen' in Austria