A better blueberry!

When I first started this blog, back in 2012, I told you about "A Childs Garden".  Reed's plants have grown up some now - especially the Honeyberry plants.  Sometimes called "Haskap" or even "Kamchatka Honeysuckle", these have just taken off this spring and produced more berries than we have seen in all the other years put together!  We have about 12 plants of various ages, but Reed's are the oldest at about 8 years old.  He got them from my dad at Snowfire Gardens when he first started working his own gardens here on our farm.

These are Reeds two bushes.  They make a beautiful addition to any yard and I could see them being used as a hedgerow even or a living fence!  You can also see that we have them growing right in the yard - among the lawn!  We take better care of the plants than we do the lawn obviously!  They dont seem to care about the soil, ours in this area is clay and gravel and I have added a little compost mulch over the years.  They do like to have water though - don't be stingy with that!

Above you can see the other two in this row behind Reeds two.  The ones in the back of the photo are younger plants than Reeds and we just moved them maybe three years ago to our site.  They are pretty easy care, just water and maybe some compost in the spring and fall.  I do take the grass and weeds out from underneath the bushes to make sure that there is good air circulation for the plant.  In the above photo you can see on the right a blue spruce tree - we have one on each side of the driveway so these honeyberry plants get a lot of water, as the hubby waters the Spruce trees to keep them healthy and waters the rest of the trees in the area with them.  Ours are also in ful sun for the most part and they don't seem to mind that even in the high heat that we just had - the berries did ripen early this year, but the plants are none the worse for the heat!

This is one branch of Honeyberries on one of the bushes!  See the green berries in among the blue?These berries are interesting - they produce three or four berries across the stem from one another and only two of them ripen at a time, so even if you pick all the ripe ones one day, you will have more ripe about three days later - depending on the weather!  You have to get the berries before the Robins and Junco birds do - they love these berries and they will sit around you and chirp (yell) at you the whole time you are picking!

This bush is one of the tall Honeyberry bushes.  The berries on the tall variety are more spread out and it is more of a "lean" bush.  Sort of like Jack Sprat and his wife style there are fat bushes and lean ones.  They all seem to produce well, no matter if tall or short, depending on the age of the bush.  The older the bush the better the production.

This is one of the bushes in the group that gets "tall".  Snowfire Gardens has berry "trees" that are about 20' tall!  I'm not sure Ill let them get that tall - or that the moose will!  I'm not tall enough for that and I may be a little too old for climbing - I already have to pick tomatoes with a ladder in the greenhouse!

The berries are easy freeze, and I freeze them for later uses.  Reed, Riley (the kids) and I will be having a "honeyberry jam session" at some point in the fall when we can get totgether and make it happen!  Honeyberry is at the top of the favorite list for Reedo - right behind Rose Petal Jelly!  See that post Here!  We will probably be making some of that again as well - we are almost out!  These berries are also great in muffins, syrup, pancakes, etc!  Where ever you would use a blueberry - you can use these!  And no swamp diving or driving to get them - or mountain climbing!

Easy clean in a colander!  Rinse with cold water and shake a few times to bring leaves and stems to the top.  One of my favorite things about this berry is how easy the are to pick "clean"  It's easy to not have any of the stems and leaves while you are picking them.  You can really see how oblong shaped this berry is in the above picture as well.

 

We ended up with about 40 cups of berries total from our 12 bushes (2 of them did not produce this year - moose damaged).  You can see in the above picture how different the colors of the berries are.  Some produce a dark blue berry, some a light blue, some are purple and some are royal colored!  Depends on the variety - such an adventure!

Honeyberry plants are easy to find it seems in all locations and Im sure you can find them locally - just right for your area!  If not Stark Brothers Nurserys have them to order online.

I hope your skies are just blue enough and the berries are bluer!

Blessed be and happy gardening!

A tenth of of degree from Hades..... Welcome to Alaska in summer

Alaska has seen record breaking temperatures this past week - enough so that we made the news in the lower 48 even - they didn't report the correct temps out there but they were close!  A cousin from Pennsylvania emailed to let us know we had made the news all the way out there!  94 in Big Lake.  That is the hottest I can remember it being here since we moved in 2005.  It hasn't been just one day either - we have had weeks of  hot, hot, hot!  There is no end in sight - forecast says at least one more week of these temperatures, and maybe hotter.  After that who knows - pray for rain for us!

I know it only says 91, but  - NO AC in my car!  I pulled into the shade at our house and took the pic before it hit the 94 mark!  TO me, at least it matters not if it is 91 or 94 - both are the same level of hell!

We had a fire break out across the lake from us last night at about 10:00 pm, and gave all of us a good scare!  Initial report said that it was started by a wood pile that spontaneously combusted!  We have been evacuated from our home for large fires twice over the past years and this is the second one that has started within a 1/2 mile of us in the last 3 years!  My "bug out" bag was packed last week because I knew that this might be an issue!  A "bug out" bag is a bag or box that you put all your "P's" into;  Important Papers (passports, wills, certificates,etc), Pills or medications, Pictures, Pet/livestock items - and dont forget the pets too - and people! 

Above you can see the helicopter over the smoke - this pilot had just taken a patient on a life flight from Galena who had been mauled by a bear and then came right out to help our firefighters find and fight this fire!  That is a military helicopter.  They are helping with all of our fires.  We cannot thank our firefighters and service members enough!  When he got low on fuel, another chopper came to relieve him.  It was a beautiful sight of the one helo peeling off toward the airport and the other beginning his work!  I wish I had got it on film but the dogs were barking, people were showing up in the yard and my phone was blowing up with all the offers of help and the check ins!

There are 113 fires burning in Alaska right now as well. Those did not make the "outside news" according to the cousin, however.  One was started by trailer chains dragging on the road and creating sparks, a few from cigarette butts, and one from an ATV that backfired and set the grass on fire.  Most of them have been pure carelessness.  People setting bonfires, and campfires.  At 90 degrees in Alaska you do not need a "warming fire".  Keeping in mind that my winter coat is literally a vest also- I have never been one to complain much about cold!  

Above - smoke from the "Montana Creek Fire" taken from Oilwell Road about 25 miles away from the fire.  I know it really looks like clouds but it is all smoke!  Photo credit Aimee Matteucci.

If you haven't seen the article yet - take a look at why Alaska feels hotter than the rest of the U.S. - its science!  Check it out HERE!  Our 75 degrees feels hotter!  We do not have air conditioning at our house - as a matter of fact I don't know anyone who does have it in their house. As I said earlier,  I don't even have it in my car currently - just needs recharged I'm sure but....that's how little we usually need it here!  Alaskans don't even know the rule that if the windows are down on the hot days, the person with the windows down has the right of way!  I learned that one in Arizona when it was 116 degrees!  If you have your windows down in that heat you have no AC!

So.....we have every window covered with sheets, curtains, and blankets to keep the heat out of the house and we have also made a little "swamp cooler" from a laundry rack, a fan, some towels, and I also added a "fish box" to fill with ice that doesn't show in the picture.  A fish box is a styrofoam box used for keeping fish frozen in shipping!  Fill it with ice, and put some ice on top of the wet towels and let the fan blow through it - ahhh nice cool air!

I have been doing the rain dances, and we have been watering here at Wicked Raven and at the school - almost daily at both places.  Trying to make sure it's wet in case of fire and wet to stay alive in the heat!  People, pets and plants!  My drillers are a little leery of drilling until we get some rain - not only does welding add to the heat of the day behind a drill rig that is pushing heat out, but it also makes sparkss of...yes fire!  Hoping to have some rain before we start drilling this week!

I hope wherever you are you have a lovely balance of sun and rain, and no fire unless you plan it!

Blessed be and stay cool!