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.

Just One Blueberry Bush

50 miles north of Seattle in a zone 8 garden far far away (or not so far if you live close by).......  2 years ago my wife and I decided to try to grow a tomato plant, and some carrots in our 1/16th acre property and an addiction was born.  I really desired to have a nice looking landscape but was getting bored of watering landscape plants and cutting grass and I find it much more rewarding to put work into something that will give back.  Not that I'm selfish or anything.  I just like to see the fruit of my labor (lots of pun intended).  So it all happened like this:  (My wife) Honey, can we grow a tomato?  (Me) Are they hard to grow. (My wife) I don't think so.  (Me) Sure.  (Me in my mind) Sure as long as I don't have to do much.  Well turns out those suckers really grow.  We got one to reach the top of our canopy in the back yard.  I guesstimate that to be about 8' or so.  It was a yellow pear tomato.  We had enough for ourselves, friends and the dog who ran around burying them in the yard and in the corners of the patio furniture.  I thought it was so successful and fun that we should add a blueberry bush.  I mentioned it to my wife and she said "I don't know if we have enough room for fruit bushes.  Do you know how big those things get?"  I replied with a very manly "Please, let give it a try."  She quickly gave in and actually bought me a Reka Blueberry.

I was very excited and content.......for a few weeks......  Next thing I knew I had a Triple Crown Blackberry as well.

It grew all the way to my roof line and back down to the ground. Fast forward to today and I have 65 different edible plants including blackberries, blueberries, boysenberry, chilean guava, chilean wintergreen, columnar apple trees, cranberries, wintergreen, currants, feijoa, figs, gojiberries, gooseberries, grapes, honeyberries, huckleberries, kiwi, lemons, lingonberries, luma, nectarines, passion fruit, raspberries, rhubarb, salal, and many varieties of strawberries.  This does not include my veggie garden of all the standards.  I even got watermelon this year (which is hard to get in my maritime climate) thanks to the variety Blacktail Mountain.  They are awesome.  I found out about them through Tall Clover Farm.  My daughter is my garden walking companion.  We walk the garden every day we can looking for bugs and weeds to pull.  This might seem obsessive but let me explain myself.  My purpose of this blog is to create a reference for myself and others who are growing rare and common fruits and vegetables in similar temperate climate and giving others a point of reference for doing the same on a small lot.  If you love the idea of growing something from another continent or things that you had no idea you could grow you are my kind of person.  I like to try to grow new things and if they don't make it that is okay.  I have a funeral for each bush that doesn't make it.  (Actually I'm just burying it so it will compost but I tell the other plants its a funeral so they don't get suspicious.).  I hope you join along and we can expand what is the norm for a zone 8 garden.