📌 Quick Diary Summary: Berry Flavor & Yields
- 🫐 The Honeyberry Waiting Game: When you plant a new honeyberry (haskap) bush, it spends the first 3 years entirely focused on root development. Do not expect bucket-loads of berries until year 4 or 5, and never heavily prune a young bush!
- 🐝 Strict Cross-Pollination: Honeyberries are not self-fertile. If you have low yields, you likely don’t have compatible varieties planted nearby. For example, the Russian variety Jugana strictly needs Vostorg or Bakcharsky Giant to pollinate.
- 🍓 Why Are Berries Sour? If your strawberries or raspberries are huge but taste watery and sour, it’s usually due to too much rain (or overwatering). The plant absorbs too much water, diluting the sugars.
- 🧪 The Sweetness Element: Potassium (K) is the nutrient responsible for fruit sweetness. If your berries lack flavor, try feeding them with Potassium Humate.
My onions are terrible this year, I don’t know what to do. The fall-planted ones already laid down their tops a week ago and put on their dry papery skins, meaning they are done growing. They are the size of walnuts!
My Exhibition onions are still standing tall, but the bulbs are tiny. I guess the extreme heat did this—I just didn’t have enough water for the onions and only managed to water them twice. Can I still help them? Maybe feed them with chicken manure tea, or has that train already left the station? My leeks are miniature too…
Masha, how are your honeyberries (haskaps) doing? Are they growing and fruiting poorly? How old are they?
I planted some last year from a seed co-op order (the Russian varieties Krasavitsa and Chudovishe / Beauty and the Beast). They were tiny and frail. But this year the bushes grew stronger, and I actually got a few berries!
gala7496 wrote:
Masha, how are your honeyberries (haskaps) doing?
My honeyberries are basically treated as an afterthought; they just grow out back along the fence. I also bought them from various co-ops over the years. For some reason, they are all completely sour, even the Canadian ones like Indigo Gem and Aurora. I managed to taste one berry from the Canadian trio, and it was mouth-puckering. The birds peck at them, but I don’t even care. I’ll probably rip two of the bushes out.
Da4nica wrote:
For some reason, they are all completely sour…
Katya, I bought some bushes in June that already had berries on them (the varieties Blue Bird and Leningrad Giant)—they were super sweet!
Good evening everyone, by the way!
Actually, regarding the sourness… Potassium! Potassium is what gives berries their sweetness.
My strawberries taste weird this year, absolutely no sweetness to them. It’s because of the heat—I was watering, watering, watering… I’m thinking I need to feed them with Potassium Humate.
gala7496 wrote:
Masha, how are your honeyberries (haskaps) doing?
Galya, I planted Blue Banana, Honey Bee, and Krasavitsa. The bushes grew quite well and had about 10-15 berries each. I also have three old bushes left from the previous homeowners. I don’t know their age, but they are about my height (5’5″ / 165 cm). We kept picking and picking, but we only harvested about 2.5 quarts (2.5 liters) total, and we ate them almost immediately. I wanted to freeze some for winter teas! Do I really need 10 adult bushes just to get a good harvest? I read about people picking them by the bucketful…
I guess I’ll just wait for the young ones to mature. I also planted six in-vitro tissue culture plants (three Michurin Marvel and three Boreal Best), but I probably won’t see a harvest from those for another 5 years. I just want everything to grow faster! 😂
Mariya Suvorova wrote:
Do I really need 10 adult bushes just to get a good harvest?
Girls, hello! Here is the secret with honeyberries: for the first 3 years after planting them in a new spot, they practically do not grow above ground and do not fruit. During this time, the plant is intensely developing its root system. Only after that will it start pushing strong new vegetative growth and increasing yields every year.
Also, honeyberries absolutely hate being pruned. You should only ever cut out broken or dead branches. I bought my first bushes about 35 years ago from a nursery when they were just being introduced to the Moscow region, and the nursery workers taught me this. Those original two bushes are still fruiting today! (Though I can’t advise on fertilizers, as I’ve literally never fed them). Good luck!
Mariya Suvorova wrote:
We kept picking and picking, but we only harvested about 2.5 quarts…
Masha, you have to carefully select varieties that will cross-pollinate each other, and plant them next to each other. Did you check pollination compatibility when you bought them?
I read on the forum that our Russian variety Jugana is amazing, but it strictly requires a specific pollinator partner.
gala7496 wrote:
…you have to carefully select varieties that will cross-pollinate each other…
For me, all my varieties bloom at exactly the same time, with very little difference. I have the Boreal series (Beast, Beauty, Blizzard), plus the Russian ones (Vostorg, Jugana, Giant’s Daughter, Aurora). They all bloomed together, which is wonderful for cross-pollination.
The ones I bought fruited in their second year. (They actually had flowers in year one, but I pinched them all off to help root growth). The tastiest ones to me are Boreal Beast, Vostorg, and Jugana. I personally don’t like flat-out sweet berries; I prefer a bright flavor with a little bit of tang!
gala7496 wrote:
Did you check pollination compatibility when you bought them?
Yes, Galya, I specifically bought Honey Bee to act as the pollinator for Blue Banana. So I guess I just need to be patient…
At least we had a bumper crop of strawberries this year! The heavy rains ruined some of them, but we still ate our fill, filled two whole freezer drawers, and even sold 26 lbs (12 kg)!
My raspberries, however, are completely tasteless this year. They probably soaked up too much water from the rain. Even the giant Samokhval variety is huge but tastes like nothing.
Mariya Suvorova wrote:
My raspberries, however, are completely tasteless this year.
Same here… in some spots they are so sour they make my teeth ache, even though they are premium sweet varieties!
👨🔬 Editor’s Botanical Note: Diluted Sugars and Haskap Compatibility
This diary thread perfectly illustrates two fundamental rules of growing berries:
1. The “Waterlogged” Flavor Problem:
Mariya and Galina complained that their premium strawberries and raspberries were massive, but tasted sour or like “nothing.” This happens when heavy rains (or over-irrigation) occur right before the harvest. The plant’s roots uptake massive amounts of water, causing the berry cells to swell rapidly. This physically dilutes the Brix levels (the concentration of plant sugars), leaving you with a watery, bland, or sour berry. As Elena correctly pointed out, ensuring your soil has adequate Potassium helps the plant synthesize sugars, but you still need to pull back on watering right before picking!
2. The Strict Haskap Pollination Rules:
Honeyberries (Haskaps) are not self-fertile. You absolutely must have two genetically different varieties blooming at the exact same time. The confusion often comes from mixing lineages. Early-blooming Russian varieties (like Jugana and Vostorg) will finish flowering before late-blooming Canadian/University of Saskatchewan varieties (like the Boreal series) even open their buds. Always buy your Haskaps in compatible pairs!
