Grow Your Own Magazine

I have just planted a Boysenberry bush, and after the fact have realised I don't know anything about it except that it is supposed to taste like a blackberry

I have planted it in a large pot in the ground and tried each of the 3 stems to a cane...

Have I done right? and is there anything you can tell me about the Boysenberry?

I bought one last year. It's in my allotment alongside a fence. To be honest, I don't know much about them either and it didn't produce much last year. It was only knee high, to be fair. I'm looking forward to trying the fruit this year though. I think they are quite vigorous and it might want a bit more room than you are giving it.

__________________
Whoever plants a garden believes in the future.

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com Updated March 16th - Round the garden - Mid March

www.henheaven.blogspot.com - Updated February 27th - Rooftops and Caulis

This might help;-

BOYSENBERRY

Large, red fruits turning to a dark wine/purple colour when mature. Excellent flavour. Serve with cream for dessert or makes really delicious preserves. The fruits are larger then those of a blackberry, juicy and not too seedy. Making a large plant, the boysenberry is hardy and extremely resistant to drought. Very easy to pick. Plant 10' apart.

from ChrisBowers.co.uk

A berry with the flavour of wild blackberry is the boysenberry, which has large, purple raspberry-like fruit that ripen in July. It is a fairly complicated cross between loganberries, raspberries and dewberries.

Being drought-resistant means that boysenberry canes are ideally suited to sandy or stony free-draining ground (like mine)

Space them 2m apart in a row so they can be trained on horizontal wires between strong posts (it is vigorous like blackberry) The canes are spiny and quickly form a dense clump.

Once fruiting has finished cut the old canes off at ground level to leave space for new ones to grow, and tie them in when they come.

__________________
~ "I would rather do a good hours work weeding than write two pages of my best; nothing is so interesting as weeding" ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

I promise not to mention the rather excellent Search function again. Feel free to slap me if I do

Bought a boysenbery on Saturday and planted it out yesterday. Have I actually got the right plant as there are definitely no spines on the canes, in fact smooth as a babies b**. I also have a tayberry of several years old and that is very spiney. Anyone shed any light on this.

Ian

Pretty sure it's what my parents have got & theirs is smooth canes(no thorns).

__________________
the fates lead him who will;him who won't they drag.

Happiness is not having what you want,but wanting what you have.xx

You can now buy thornless Boysenberry and Tayberry canes. (I bet I haven't though).

The thorny blackberries are said to taste better. I have the thornless tayberry. The thorny ones have much longer fruits. So you win some, you lose some!

__________________
Whoever plants a garden believes in the future.

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com Updated March 16th - Round the garden - Mid March

www.henheaven.blogspot.com - Updated February 27th - Rooftops and Caulis

The improved taste is probably due to them being covered in blood when picking the thorny versions

I have grown a thornless boysenberry for 6-8 years and find it of indifferent flavour, and the berries are no bigger than a reasonable raspberry. The plant is rampant and produces a large crop but judging ripeness is very tricky as they darken only very slightly as they go through the last stages of ripening, from quite tart to sweet. When fully ripe they are a deep reddish-purple.

As for thornless blackberries - try Waldo - ENORMOUS fruits with the flavour of some of the very best wild blackberries. It takes quite a while to establish and is only ever a very modest-sized plant, especially for a bramble, and would be fine in almost any garden. I like all cane/bush fruits but from the point of view of taste, crop and ease of cultivation this is really a superb plant.