Turkey just got a new best friend

When I ordered this little evergreen bush that promised to replace cranberry sauce on my thanksgiving day plate I must say I was skeptical to say the least. That's like a football game without potato chips or Alvin and Simon without Theodore but this little gem may have won me over. Lingonberries (Vaccinium Vitus-Idea) are small plants growing 6" to 1' tall most things I have read say they are about 2'wide but they also say they spread through underground rhyzomes so it sounds to me like they will fill in the area given. I have 2 in the ground and 2 in a pot. The ones in the ground are both Koralle variety which is said to be a faster spreading variety

and the ones in pots are Ida. Ida is slow spreading and are very heavy producing.

As I mentioned they are evergreen and bloom in early autumn and fruit in late autumn except for Ida who fruits late summer and again in late autumn. They change colors from dark green to lighter green to pink depending on the season. My Ida plants fruited their first year but the Koralle plants didn't. They are blooming heavily right now so I am hopeful. The fruit fresh taste to me a lot like a mushy cranberry but when turned into a jam or sauce they will blow your mind. They may have replaced raspberry jam as my wife's favorite. Not an easy task to accomplish. Don't believe me? Go to Ikea and get some Lingonberry jam for yourself. It might take a while before you will have enough to make jam or sauce but you can enjoy the beauty of the bush while you're waiting. They are self fertile but produce more when planted with other varieties like most vaccinium species.

This bird lays fruit

There are some fruits that were doomed from the beginning by name alone. One of them being the gooseberry. It really is a shame though. I have a Hinnomaki Red gooseberry bush. Mine is going on its third year and has grown to be about 3' tall and 4' wide.  It is sandwiched between a Hosta and a Hydrangea so I do have to keep pruning this group.  

Fruit is born on older wood so if you are going to prune existing limbs do it immediately after fruiting so it can have some new growth in the current season. Otherwise you will end up like me and accidentally prune out most of your crop. Another way is prune out the oldest canes when you have a good 5-7 canes going. The one downside to this plant is they have some massive thorns so do be careful but when these guys are ripe you will forget all about the javelin spears covering them. This is the first year I let mine truly ripen and I was shocked how good they are. Mine were ripe in mid July. The skin had a touch of tartness and the flesh is very sweet. To further condense the plant it can be grown as a cordon or espaliared against a fence.

A stroll in a diaper

I have a routine that I enjoy very much. Everyday since my baby was born I come home, pet the dog, kiss my wife, grab my baby and walk the garden. It helps me to unwind from my busy day and gives me a way to quickly do maintenance before things get out of hand. One of our favorite stops is by the oregano and alpine strawberries. 

My daughter who is now 9 months old likes to smell the different herbs such as thyme, mint, lavender and lemon balm. Today is more focused on that family than one plant. Herbs. Take off the s and it might be your favorite uncle. Put it in the ground and it might become your favorite plant. 

What's in it for me?

Mowing and pruning, clipping and snipping, raking and staking, fertilizing and spertilizing? (Try it.  Nothing rhymes with fertilizing).  All of these were tasks that I loved but somehow lacked the desire to do on a regular enough basis to really keep things to the elite standard I was looking for.  I guess it all really came down to one thing.  What's in it for me.  I give them my blood sweat and tears and to what end?  I always had the idea that edible plants = ugly.  In my yard my first priority had always been to have a beautiful looking yard.  Suddenly I wanted more.  I wanted a return on my investment.  In other words "You best give or you be gone".  Fortunately I am not nearly as selfish with my human relationships!  My first call to action was to investigate if there were edible plants that were not hideous.  Turns out there are quite a few.  I first had to convince my wife to let me try a few things.  Growing edibles was her idea first but she just wanted a small veggie garden.  I was thinking on a much larger scale.  Total yard domination if you will.  First up on the list was Blueberries.  Turns out they love my naturally acid PNW maritime climate.  My beautiful wife and baby here in front of our lupins and 3 blueberries in the background along with a recovering Meyer Lemon in the yellow pot that didn't like its winter location.  I'm going to try something else this year for him.

We started with a Reka blueberry.  From there we got 2 evergreen (in my climate) Sunshine Blue, Bluecrop, Earliblue, Pink Lemonaid (A pink when ripe fruit with really cool slender glossy leaves with a metallic undertone), Spartan, Chandler, 2x Bountiful Blue(Also evergreen in my area).  If I was going to grow just one fruit bush from my first 2 1/2 years of experience I would say do blueberries if you have the acid soil for it or can do them in a container.  They give a good return young and can give 10-20 pounds in the right condition depending on variety when mature.  So far my best successes have been Sunshine Blue and Bluecrop.  Sunshine ripens over several months and gives me a large handful every other day.  It also seems to be less picky on the soil type and acidity.  Bluecrop was more all at once but fruited pretty heavy for a 2 year old plant.  The others still did very well.  No losers in the group.  I'll post updates in the years to come as to how they are coming along.  I know these are not the rare earth shaking crazy plants that I was talking about but I am doing these in order as to when I acquired them.  That way you can follow along with my journey.