Social Media Compilation: Berries And Currants

The most surprising thing about wild american black currants, Ribes americanum, is how good they taste. If you've tried Crandall currant, a selection of another species it has a similar flavour with no astringency, they're very tasty. and they're native, grown from seed, I was lucky enough to find a local patch of them, you can help ID the plant by the small yellow glands under the leaves. I want to plant them all over our property. Here i'm making plugs with small clusters, excited to get these growing. #nativeplants

Ribes aureum, golden currant. lobed leaves, variable colored fruit. these are flowering for the first time at three years from seed.

Self pollinating, white currants on this small plant set some fruit after just a few weeks from breaking dormancy under grow lights where they're hiding out until the weather warms up #whitecurrants

A couple of weeks from breaking dormancy this year old white current decided to bloom super quickly under the grow lights. green flowers are so cool

Checking some nursery beds we have currants and gooseberries leafing out, and you can see my row tags to keep the varieties straight. these plants don't mind some frost at all, even while it's been freezing at night they're unaffected.

First signs of spring, red elderberry and chokecherry buds swelling

Wow this currant has some nice roots after just ten days. I like the heavy rooting cultivars, this one is boskoop giant .. #propagation

The forest around our place is full of wild raspberry, and I enjoy the tea/tisane made from the leaves. bags like this are just available at seedy saturday events from us. going seedy saturday Regina tomorrow!

Hardwood cuttings in bags to hold onto moisture. these are in tall pots on bottom heat, in my grow room at 22C. I started with elderberry, and also attempting some Ribes . Once they root I leave the bag on for a week just loosely on top and then monitor the leaves, once it's off if there's any sign of drooping it gets misted and back in the bag. Btw you can do the same with mist propagation, if your cuttings begin to wilt just put them back in the mist and they'll usually recover and become turgid again. last photo is rooted elderberry growing fast. #propagation

Lilac and currants are first to leaf out in our raised beds. These were softwood propagated under mist last summer. #propagation #gardening #horticulture #plants

Sea buckthorn, collected from two sources. the smaller one on the right is more of a shelterbelt seedling, one on the left is larger and nearly thornless, I was actually able to strip the fruit from the branches. cultivar unknown. I'll have both on our seed shop soon, still sorting out what to call the larger one.

Silver buffalo berries.

Currants from cuttings this spring, I have a fun selection of new ones that will be large enough to propagate in 2026. this process of collecting material, rooting in and establishing a stock bed is ongoing. Some of these cultivars are going to take research to dig up their origins, Onyx is a good example.

Silver buffaloberry, perfectly ripe this week. we have red and yellow ones to pick

Boyne raspberries, it's a Canadian introduction and ripens early. These rows were super healthy, the new canes were taller than me, they're managed with some pruning for height in the fall when the older canes are removed. I'll get into growing raspberries eventually, for now we collected some for seed.

Poorman gooseberry

Largest clove currant I've come across, this bush is quite old and has large fruit, not sure if it's a crandall seedling or another cultivar

Highbush cranberry can root from softwood cuttings, these ones at 35 days have some decent rooting. it's a bit sensitive to even misting because the cuttings are large, I try and take them with 3 nodes. about half rooted, but that was more set I think, some dried out, other pots had 100%. A tricky plant to root or grow from seed, trying some of both this year. #propagation

H. sinensis grafted to Hippophae rhamnoides, so it's a larger later ripening sea buckthorn species, female and full of fruit grafted to a male shelterbelt variety.

Alpine currant, cool parking lot find.. for someone with a Ribes collection it's cool to see the mature bushes. it's a european species, these ones are about as large as they get. the leaves are distinct with the tight lobes, and it's dioecious so rare to find any fruit in cultivation where most are male.

Trying out this machine for extracting pulp from berries and separating the seeds. worked great on a first run, about 3/4 of the saskatoons are pre-processed into a jelly that you could basically use on toast as is, I'll make up some jars and add a few things, minimal sugar, and run them through the canner. this process should let me de-seed berries and make just about full use of them for preserves and since the seeds are fully intact, not cooked etc so in good shape to plant in the nursery.

Collection of wild Ribes from seed are doing well, this is plant followed by it's tag.. yah the tags are temporary. collecting this germplasm is one step on the way to propagating these, and eventually using them for our own seed source, or breeding work. all of these species are super cold hardy and resilient in our climate, produce edible fruit, and have unique characteristics. native currants and gooseberries are not easy to find from any Canadian nursery, maybe you can get one, but you want the whole collection right? something about spikey fruit is just cool.

Wild raspberry season starting. they grow all around our place without any kind of maintenance, covering the ground. the fruit can be large, not as intensely productive as cultivars but they make up for by growing everywhere along trails and in disturbed areas, kind of an awesome plant. I collect them for seeds every year and make some jam.

Potting up seedlings, natives like silver buffaloberry (Shepherdia argentea), wolf willow (Elaeagnus commutata), a collection of currants and gooseberries. experimenting with container nursery, most of the plants are in pots and plug trays for this year.. last year I would have them all in the ground, but I think for some species a pot works better.. and I can ship them in the fall, basically can't do that with bare root here on the Canadian prairies, when the leaves drop and it snows the next day. #backyardnursery

Sea buckthorn softwood starting to callous after 10 days. I found an aqueous iba + naa mix works particularly good for these, AB testing last year had far for roots on our in house solution. should be rooted at 30-40 days.

Saskatoons are in season, Amelanchier alnifolia. in Manitoba they ripen at the start of july. we have wild ones around our place, seems like a good year for them, some bushes are quite full of the fruit.

Ribes glandulosum, skunk currant. not all that skunky, native, awesome spikey fruit

Jostine, a cultivar of jostaberry which is this cool currant-gooseberry hybrid. gets me super interested in hybrid Ribes crosses. Jostine rooted enough to pot up, not quite as heavily as some of the Ribes nigrum and rubrum (black and red currants) but it's fast growing so I expect these will get up to a transplant ready size by fall #propagation

Ribes lacustre, bristly black currant, or maybe a better name is the prickly gooseberry. it's actually a gooseberry. native species with awesome spikey fruit

Seems these leaves aren't abaxially pubescent.. (fuzzy/hairy under the leaves), and when you crush them they aren't skunky.. there's a few indicators that it's Ribes americanum. but the flowers is more like the other one. a hybrid? takes a bit to grow out specimens and get a confident ID. what I'm interested in here is the difference between american wild currant and northern black currant. oddly these ones have astringent fruit (more like R. hudsonianum), and my other source for R. americanum have awesome tasting fruit (reminds me of crandall). I like finding genetic variation in wild populations, it means you can make a good selection and clone it through softwood cuttings.

Elderberry growing in zone 3. this was my second winter with them, and even with a good snow cover all of the top growth wasn't alive in the spring, but maybe it's fine they easily regen from the roots. now that I know, will just plan to crop them all for cuttings in the fall, which is totally fine for me. I'm also going to take softwood, so these poor bushes might not get very tall. anyone else growing elderberry where it's -40 in the winter?

One plant for this species, Ribes lacustre the Prickly currant. From a collection of just 5 tiny seeds provided by the usda. super fragile, keep it alive or lose the species from our collection. hoping to establish stock plants representing all of our native Ribes, the genus for currants and gooseberries. #nativeplants #nativeplantnursery

Alpine strawberry. started some from seed this spring, I think they're big enough to include in my sale next month. #wildstrawberry #wildstrawberries

Had to check, 3g is about the largest currant I've ever seen. many of the largest berries from this clove currant bush are the size of small grapes.

Yellow silver buffaloberry growing in our old hayfield. they're a bit like sea buckthorn. I pick them with gloves and just let them drop into a box, you kind of just knock them off the branches. #silverbuffaloberry

Ribes odoratum, ribes rubrum .. old bushes I planted in 2001. collecting a bag of each today for seed.

Purple gooseberry fruiting in it's second year. unknown cultivar, tough plant that does well with some neglect

Red currant taking off after potting up. this is a good result, these will be large enough to send out as a one year plant, I may even need to pot them up because currants can quickly grow a large root system. part of the challenge with rooting softwood is getting the cuttings to resume growth after rooting at a time of year when the daylight is reducing and plants are transitioning to hardening off. Starting them early helps, I'm also about to add supplemental light in the greenhouse in the evenings called "greenhouse forcing" to convince the plants that the day length is still more like June. If I rooted this currant in mid august, there's a good chance it would not have grown any more until next year, a challenge for some species that affects winter survival. #propagation #redcurrants

Canadian gooseberry, Ribes oxyacanthoides. stems full of fuzzy thorns. This plant set fruit last summer and there's a tray of it's seedlings growing, also trying some softwood. native species are great, I want to plant more of them around our property along walking trails.

I like to collect wild currants and gooseberries. This one is one is our native Ribes hirtellum or swamp gooseberry. The new stems are smooth with small sparse spines just at the nodes, and the leaf stalks are hairy (hirtellum for hairy). #gooseberry

Highbush cranberry, Viburnum trilobum at six weeks into rooting. I checked them for roots a few weeks ago, and in this batch about half were good and were potted up and the rest needed more time. Many plants root like this. Six weeks in the full batch rooted. On other years when I took the cuttings later they didn't root as quickly, the juvenility is important if you want a rooting response. next year I'll make sure to try nannyberry, Viburnum lentagowhich is probably similar since it's closely related #propagation

Hinnomaki red #gooseberry

Black currants on this bush are just about ripe.

First ripe raspberry of the season is the best one ;)

Red elderberry ripening this week. I've met two people now at farmers markets who make jam from them.

Black currants are fast and heavy rooting with softwood, here are well rooted cuttings of Tiben at 21 days. So this week I'm going through all the currants and checking them, anything at this stage can get potted up and then moved to a less frequent misting zone to begin hardening off. With that setup, I've also put them in the shade for a week and watering often, or on other year set them just outside of the mist in the greenhouse so they catch the edge of it. #propagation

Gooseberry growing fully under this spruce and into the lower boughs. full shade, decent set of fruit. this bush is at least 25 yrs old, I just call it purple gooseberry

What cultivar is this? I planted it in 2002, it was available at a big box store garden center. It produces a decent crop of black currants, they're small and kinda sour. I thought it was Consort, a hybrid that was common at the time. That how I label it, but I would like to be sure. Look at the leaves with the large dull teeth and deep lobes. fully zone 3 hardy, and at 22 yr old and never pruned it's 6-8 ft tall.

Goji berry rooted using two different rooting hormones, on the right using an iba+naa liquid solution was a much better result than the usual iba talc. #propagation

Ok we might have the Id, here'a a leaf next to crandall, an old ribes aureum selection. The fruit is completely unlike crandall, and I always thought R. aureum had red/black/yellow fruit colors, this one just turns jet black when it's ripe.

Collected goji berries today, so cool how they ripen all summer. I have rooted cuttings from this bush, they're tasty and large, probably a cultivar but not sure.

Cleaning wild raspberry seed. I process them in a modified blender and then decant until clean, the seeds will sink and the rest floats, works well for most berries with small seeds. #seedsaving

Found some seedling currants along a trail, probably they escaped cultivation or could be a wild species. ripe fruit is tasty, reminds me of crandall. variable ripening and late, no musky smell, zone 3 welcome. id suggestions welcome #currants

Collecting red elderberry today. I keep bumping into people who like to cook with them, it's weird how there's conflicting info about their edibility.

Snowberries

First strawberry on this plant started from seed this spring.

Jewel black raspberry in its 3rd year. I set some logs on the vines every winter to keep them below the snow, seems enough to keep it alive, the thermometer in our orchard is a few ft away and hits -35 - -40C a dozen or more nights every winter #zonepushing

Collected some black currants yesterday, happy to find these. They're overripe but its good because while I'll eat a few they're mostly for seeds. Bush was a large seven year old ben series in need of a good pruning. #seedsaving

A chokeberry bush I've been propagating and collecting seed from. last photo is seedlings growing from dropped fruit. #chokeberry

Highbush cranberry softwood cuttings.

This black berry vine was laid down and covered with a log and a good snow pack over the winter to push its zone, and we were lucky enough to have some fruit this year #blackberries

White pearl currants, pink Champaign currants. Both are perfectly ripe this week. #currant

Prepared black currant cuttings for mist propagation in our greenhouse. These are from a consort currant bush I planted twenty years ago, because it's old and large there's all kinds of new vigorous growth for cuttings. From this step they're dipped in rooting hormone and stuck in flats with a 50/50 mix of coarse perlite and peat.

Three new cultivars of black currants from dormant hardwood cuttings - growing indoors at 2 weeks from sticking. We also put some in an outdoor bed in May, and held back half just in case. I recommend doing this with a limited resource. These cuttings it turns out are doing better, I think it's because of the consistent environment, used rooting hormone and low to medium light, humidity dome, even some wax and parafilm out of caution. I wasn't sure if they would need a temperature differential from top to roots like bottom heat or the cold night time air. Using a peat potting mix just slightly damp. We lost a few in the outside bed because the soil is heavier, although it's working well for other cuttings like willow. So long as we get some to grow then we can softwood propagate. #propagation #currants

Bunchberry

Highbush cranberries require patience to grow from seed - collected a bag today but they'll need a long warm stratification that begins next spring, so the seed planted this fall will wait until spring of 2023 to germinate. #cranberry #highbushcranberry

Wild cranberry, viburnum sp. flowering today. Thinking about propagating. #cranberry #cranberries #blossom

Nannyberry can hang late going into fall. they're like raisons, but I still like to eat them off the tree, around the large flat seed they have the most unique woody flavour. filled all of my pockets for seed.

Alpine strawberries fruiting into october. small and tasty fruit on these. we have a few left in our fall sale, they're two years old from seed.

Black wellington currant. they get this size one year in the ground, p+1 so calling it 2 yr old plant. super aromatic leaves. #bareroot

Nannyberry, just ripe now. tastes like raisons with a hint of woodiness.

Highbush cranberry, fully ripe and they will hang around for a while. the seeds need a long warm stratification, almost six months at room temperature so starting the now is helpful to get plants growing in the spring.

Anyone know what these are? seeds are like a rugulose stone fruit, weird seeds, not barberry. super sour, like an intense cranberry. zone 3 hardy, grows in long canes.

This is why I get excited about gooseberries. Black velvet is a hybrid between the common European gooseberry and Worcesterberry. The range of interesting species in some cultivars is so cool, not to mention the history, the different leaves, flowers, growth habbits, falvours in Ribes makes them fun to collect.

Nannyberry starting to ripen, they'll turn blue this month and taste delicious off the tree. these are a native shrub in the viburnum genus, related to highbush cranberry. they set fruit in the same way, you might think it was cranberry but it ripens a month later.. and while cranberry is very tart and better to cook with, nannyberry is great fresh, sweet just with a large seed, tastes more like a saskatoon mixed with something else. when they're super ripe they can hang late and taste like raisons. I'll be trying to collect more seed this fall, like other viburnum they need a long time to stratify, seed started in the spring will germinate the following year.

This **cotoneaster had unusual fruiting that hugged the stems in long strings, large fruit and more productive than the other bushes. **edited, originally thought it was aronia

Barberry, a shrub covered in these racemes of bright red edible fruit.

Highbush cranberry seeds drying. they're so pink

Silver buffaloberry still full of fruit, they're just as good a month after ripening

Black currants waking up under grow lights

Ribes odoratum seedlings of Crandall currant, one of the largest fruiting tastiest currants, but unusual because it's a clove currant. I started them early into stratification, and at 5 months they just germinated in the fridge. Better timing would be start them jan/feb and plant in May. I have these seeds on our shop!

Gooseberry plugs waking up. rooted plugs are similar to how I have then in 2.5" pots, though I think the pot has a bigger root system. brought in a new batch of cultivars for this summer, if all goes well this plant will get a trim in june and we'll be on the way with softwood cuttings.. gooseberry hardwood can be slow to root.

Time to start seeds stratifying. wild american black currant, wild raspberry, wild sarsaparilla, and ribes aureum - a bush I think was crandall with huge berries. these soak overnight then go in the fridge with some damp peat moss until april. many perennial seeds need to go through this cold conditioning for a few months before they'll germinate. for these berry bushes, I'm going to try plug trays so this is enough seed for half a dozen trays of each.

Excited about these elderberry cuttings from @haomaselections . they're about one week after sticking. I soaked them overnight, set into deep pots with a perlite/peat/vermiculite mix, had them covered for humidity, used some iba talc, and adding bottom heat today, the tops are at room temp. surprised at how fast they wake up and grow, hoping they root as quickly. has anyone else rooted elderberry indoors like this? #elderberry #hardwoodcuttings