Agarita pests and diseases

Agarita has very few problems. The roots contain alkaloids that inhibit fungi, and It even thwarts deer! Leaf spots and rusts can occur, and agarita is an intermediate host for stem rust, which can cause significant problems for barley, oats, rye, and wheat, so plan accordingly.

Try growing agarita in your landscape for some refreshing summer fruit.

Used to make jam, syrup, and sauce, lingonberries are very tart, tasting like a cross between cranberries and raspberries.

Lingonberries (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) are also known as cowberries, mountain cranberries, partridgeberries, cougarberries, beaverberries, and several other animal-berry combinations, depending on where they are found.

Lingonberry description

Lingonberries are tough, short evergreen shrubs. They rarely grow more than 18” in height. Plants produce white to pink bell-shaped flowers and bright red edible berries. Broad, oval leaves grow alternately along rounded stems. Unlike most broadleaf plants, lingonberries retain their leaves all year. Fruit is bitter early in the season but sweetens somewhat through winter. Even at its sweetest, lingonberries are very tart.

Weeds are the biggest threat to your lingonberry plants. A thick mulch of wood chips around the plants can reduce that problem and improve soil structure, help retain moisture, and eventually add nutrients to the soil. Your lingonberries will not require much in the way of fertilizer. In fact, adding too much nitrogen increases the odds of your plant dying in winter. A better choice would be to top dress around your lingonberry plants with a little bit of aged compost or fish emulsion and leave them be. You can also use a complete fertilizer, such as 5-10-5 each spring.

Lingonberries perform well in raised beds and containers. You should protect your lingonberry plants from severe winds. Lingonberry plants are sensitive to chlorides, which means your need to keep them away from chlorinated pool water, de-icing salts, and fertilizers containing potassium chloride.

Lingonberry pests and diseases

Birds, bears, and foxes love lingonberries. So do aphids, armyworms, mealybugs, and whiteflies. Bacterial leaf spot and gray mold may occur, but these diseases can often be prevented by not watering from above. Instead, use soaker hoses or furrow irrigation to keep water off the leaves.

Not everyone lives where lingonberries grow. If you do, you owe it to yourself to give them a try.

Gooseberry pests and diseases

Gooseberry plants are susceptible to several fungal diseases, such as American gooseberry mildew, anthracnose, currant cane blight, gray mold, and septoria leaf spot, so avoid overhead watering and be sure to provide good drainage.

In North America, gooseberry sawflies (Nematus ribesii), also known as currant sawflies and imported currantworms, are the most common pest. Aphids, brown marmorated stink bugs, currant borers, gooseberry fruitworms, and clearwing moths may also cause problems. And birds.

Note: If you live in New Hampshire, North Carolina, or West Virginia, you are not allowed to grow gooseberries or other Ribes plants. If you live in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island or Delaware, you’ll need a permit. These bans are in place because Ribes can carry white pine blister, an imported Asian rust fungus that has devastated high elevation pine forests.

Thanks to reader Carol Peck, I learned that California hosts several native edible gooseberry varieties. These include canyon gooseberry (Ribes menziesii), flowering gooseberry (R. speciosum), hillside gooseberry (R. californicum), Santa Lucia gooseberry (R. sericeum), Sierra gooseberry (R. roeslii), spreading gooseberry (R. divaricatum), and yellow gooseberry (R. quercetorum). Thanks to Carol Peck for the information!

If you are lucky enough to live where you can grow gooseberries, give them a try. These shrubs are very prolific and the fruit is delicious!

Nothing compares with the sun-warmed sweetness of a raspberry freshly plucked and popped into your mouth!

How to grow raspberries

Raspberries love water. Sunburn is a common sign that your raspberries are not getting enough water. Our raspberries get nearly daily waterings from the bucket of water we collect in the shower as we wait for the water to heat up, at least when it’s not raining. At the same time, our heavy clay soil can also lead to drowning if there is too much water. Since raspberries have relatively shallow roots, regular light watering is better than less frequent deep watering. ​

Raspberries prefer cooler, damp weather, but you can recreate those conditions by adding them to a shade garden or growing them in containers under a pergola or on a shady balcony. The plants need lots of sun but they prefer a little shade in the heat of the afternoon. Raspberries grow best in soil with a pH of 5.5 to 7.0. They love raised beds, and fence lines provide the perfect medium for trellising. If the cane tips reach the ground, rather than producing fruit, new roots will form, so trellising is a good idea. That’s how bramble fruits spread in the wild. They also spread using underground stems called stolons.

While you can start raspberries from seed, it is much more satisfying to start with cuttings, dormant bare-root plants, or potted seedlings. You should remove any damaged roots or stems before planting your raspberries in a shallow hole, making sure that the crown is slightly above soil level. Spreading the root mass out, covering with soil, and mudding them in to eliminate air pockets will help your plants get a good start in their new location. Be sure to water well, to help the soil settle. Plants should be placed 2 to 3 feet apart and new plants should be trimmed down to be only 6 inches tall, to encourage strong root growth. Black and purple raspberries should be spaced 3 to 4 feet apart.

Raspberry plants have perennial roots and crowns that grow new canes each year. These new green canes are called primocanes. Then they turn brown and go dormant over the winter, to one degree or another. In spring, these now 2-year old canes are called floricanes. Flowers and fruit are only produced on floricanes, so you don’t want to prune them out.

Fruit production varies between everbearing and summer-bearing varieties. Summer-bearing raspberries bear one crop in summer on two-year old canes, while everbearing cultivars have two crops, one small crop in summer on new canes and one heavier crop in fall on two-year old canes. Everbearing cultivars are sometimes called fall-bearing. It is a good idea to check with your local Cooperative Extension Office to find the best cultivar for your location.

How to prune raspberries

Raspberry pruning methods will vary, depending on the cultivar. Fruit-producing canes of summer-bearing red and yellow raspberries should be cut to ground level after harvest and removed. Thin primocanes to no more than 4 or 5 per foot. Fall-bearing raspberries can be treated the same as everbearing varieties, if you want both the summer and fall crops. Otherwise, leave the canes in place for an extra year. If you are growing black or purple raspberries, you will need to pinch the canes when they reach 2 to 2-1/2 feet in height and then again two or three times during the summer. This will promote lateral cane growth for more fruit. Be sure to remove any dead or damaged canes whenever you are working your bramble fruits. Canes left to grow a third year may produce some fruit on the lower part of the canes but they should be pruned out after that to make room for new canes and to reduce the spread of disease.

Raspberries pests and diseases

Raspberry pests include borers, spider mites, aphids, and Fuller Rose Beetles. Fungal diseases, such as yellow rust, and raspberry leaf curl can also be a problem. Healthy plants are far less likely to be vulnerable, so you will want to feed your raspberry plants each time they start a new bloom cycle. According to UC Davis, 3 to 6 pounds of blood meal, feather meal, or fish meal should be applied for every 100 feet of row. Most of us don’t have a 100 feet row of raspberry plants, so I did the math and it works out to approximately 1 to 2 ounces per plant.

Raspberries are self-fertile, which means you can get fruit from a single plant. If you really love raspberries, and have the room, you can grow a raspberry hedge as part of your edible landscape!

Note: If you have never grown raspberries before, you may be surprised to learn that they ripen unevenly. One part of a berry will look ripe days before the rest of it does. This is okay, simply wait (if you can!) for the entire berry to ripen before picking.

Sunny days and cool nights make the best strawberries.

Like many other edible plants, strawberries grown and harvested at home tend to have much better flavor than store-bought varieties. While strawberries are grown commercially as annuals, they are actually a perennial plant.

Technically, they are not berries at all! Strawberries are actually aggregate fruits, along with raspberries and blackberries. And those tiny seeds are a special variety of seed known as an achene, which is actually a dried fruit!

How to grow strawberries

Strawberries make excellent container plants. They grow very well in towers, raised beds, narrow planter boxes, and even rain gutters can be used. Ideally, containers should be 6 - 8” deep and at least 18” long. Potting soil mixed with aged compost or organic fertilizer should be used to provide plenty of nutrients. Use these steps to successfully grow strawberries in the ground:

• Select a sunny location where members of the nightshade family (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants) have not been planted in the past 3 years.
• Clear the planting area of all weeds.
• Amend the soil with aged compost or manure and fertilize with alfalfa meal.
• Build rows that are 6” tall and 10” wide, with each row being 28” apart.
• Cover the planting area with straw.
• Plants should be placed 10 - 14” apart. 
• Crowns should be at or just above the soil line after watering.
• Drip irrigation is ideal because it keeps the soil moist.
• Prune any runners the first year to encourage fruit and root development.

Strawberry varieties

Strawberries are classified as either “day-neutral” or “short-day” varieties. Day-neutral strawberries, also known as “everbearing", flower and produce fruit year round, peaking April through October. Aptos and Fern are popular everbearing strawberry plants. Short-day varieties, such as Pajaro, Seascape, Tioga and Chandler, produce more as days become shorter, in fall, through early spring. 

Strawberry pests & diseases
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Slugs and snails, earwigs and sowbugs will eat fruit that is lying on the ground, which is why a barrier of straw is used to cover strawberry beds. Keeping fruit off of the ground will also reduce berry rot. Powdery mildew, Botrytis fruit rot (gray mold), Verticillium wilt, and leaf spot diseases are common on strawberries.

Strawberries occasionally undergo a process called vivipary, in which each tiny seed sprouts a leaf.

Sweet, juicy summer favorites commonly include strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. Of course, in the world of botany, you'd be wrong on most counts.

What are berries?​

Botanically, berries are the fruit (pericarp) produced by a single ovary. By this definition, the following plants are all berries:

Berries that are not berries

Strawberries and raspberries are not berries. Weird, right? Strawberries are accessory fruits. The flesh of an accessory fruit is not made from the ovary. Instead, it is a protective growth from surrounding tissue. Raspberries and blackberries are aggregate fruits. Aggregate fruits are made from single flowers, but many ovaries that are held together in a cluster. Speaking of clusters, what about grapes? Yep, grapes are, by definition, berries.

Cultivated berries

Plants that produce berries are called baccate or bacciferous. [I wonder if that name comes from Bacchus, the Roman god of wine.] Most berries are sweet and delicious, but not all of them. Potato flowers produce berries, but don’t eat them - they’re poisonous! Elderberries and mulberries are fine to eat when ripe, but poisonous when unripe. People have been eating berries for as long as we have existed, but we’ve only been cultivating them for a few hundred years, so there’s probably a lot more to learn.

Berry plant basics

Generally speaking, nearly all berries are shallow-rooted plants that prefer southern or western exposure. They do best in loose soil, so you can help berry plants by working a lot of compost into any heavy clay before planting, especially for blueberries. Soil compaction will seriously interfere with berry production. The use of deep-rooted green manure crops, such as hairy vetch, mustard, fava beans, marigolds, or rye before planting will help loosen the soil, add nutrients, and reduce erosion in berry plantings.

Berries do well in raised beds and they prefer soil with a pH of 6.2-6.8 (slightly acidic). My soil tends to be more alkaline, and our water supply is very alkaline, so regular acidification may be necessary.
Over-the-counter pH tests are very useful in this regard, unlike DIY soil tests. I urge you to get your soil tested by a lab.

Berry pests and diseases

While each species has its own particular problems, most berries are susceptible to verticillium wilt and other fungal diseases. Crops should be rotated every 5 years to interrupt the pathogens’ life cycle. Commercial berry growers regularly fumigate with methyl bromide to combat black root rot. Methyl bromide is an ozone-depleting chemical that has been phased out of use in most other countries. You can help harvested berries last 30% longer by storing them in the refrigerator and only washing them just before eating.

Strawberry
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People started cultivating strawberries commercially in the late 18th century. The Romans thought its wild cousin had medicinal uses due to the heart-shaped berry. Strawberries require an accumulation of 200-300 hours of temperatures between 32-50 °F to break dormancy. These are called chill hours. Strawberry flowers look hermaphroditic but they function as either male or female. New plants can be propagated using runners. If you want fruit, remove the runners. Like potatoes, strawberries are especially well suited to planting in towers. Powdery mildew, leaf spot, and leaf blight are common diseases, and pests include ants, fruit flies, slugs, moths, thrips, weevils, mites, and aphids.

Blueberry

Did you know that blueberries were not domesticated until 1911? Unlike strawberries, most blueberry varieties need 650-850 chill hours. What this means in warmer areas is that blueberry bushes may not know what to do with themselves after an extremely mild winter, Blueberries love acidic soil. They perform best in soil with a pH of 4.2-4.8. You can acidify soil by adding sulphur. Be sure to follow package directions when adding sulphur. According to researchers at Cornell University, nitrate-based fertilizers can be toxic to blueberries.

Blackberry/raspberry

Blackberries and raspberries are close cousins. Due to color variations, sometimes the only way to tell the difference is to pick them. If the torus (receptacle stem) stays with the fruit, it’s a raspberry, if it separates from the fruit, it’s a blackberry. Both varieties are called bramble fruits or caneberries, because the fruit is produced on bristly canes each year. First year canes (primocanes) produce palmately compound leaves and no flowers. Second year canes (floricanes) do not get longer. Instead, they produce lateral buds with 3-5 leaflets. At the ends of these lateral buds, fruit is produced on short stems called racemes. These members of the Rubus genus don’t seem to care what type of soil they are in.

​The most common problem with Rubus plants is insufficient pollination. You can improve the odds of pollination by installing plants that attract pollinators. Keep in mind, every time the tip of a cane reaches the ground, a new plant will start to grow, so it is important to trellis these berries, unless you want an impenetrable bramble patch! Birds, caterpillars, aphids, weevils and beetles are the biggest  pests. Anthracnose cankers can be treated with Bordeaux mixture (lime, water and copper sulfate).  Raspberries should not be planted where peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, bulbs or potatoes have been grown. These plants are often hosts for verticillium wilt, which can stay in the soil for many years.

​Traditional folklore says you should not harvest blackberries after Old Michaelmas Day (October 11th), because the devil has spit on them. Though it sounds funny, the truth behind the fiction is that cooler wet weather can cause certain molds to start growing on the fruit and may make it toxic. Once established, blackberries and raspberries will come back, year after year.

Currants

In 2015, I installed three young currant seedlings. They do well in our area and the fruit is delicious, but the summer heat really took a toll. There are three basic varieties of edible currants: blackcurrant, redcurrant, and white currant. They are, along with gooseberries, members of the Ribes genus. Despite the name, these fruits are not related to the dried currants used in baking; those are a type of grape. If you want to grow currant berries, you can’t live in New Hampshire, North Carolina, or West Virginia. If you live in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island or Delaware, you’ll need a permit. These bans are in place because Ribes can carry White Pine Blister, an imported Asian rust fungus that has devastated high elevation pine forests.

​Currants generally prefer cool, well-drained soil, in partial shade or full sun. In our warmer climate, they prefer heavy soil (yay!) and partial shade. They can be grown as either shrubs or trees. Fruit is borne on spurs of 2- and 3-year old wood. Pests include aphids, spider mites, imported currantworms, and currant borers. Currants need a lot of potassium, but they are sensitive to potassium chloride, a common ingredient in fertilizer.

Whether or not it’s technically a berry, you can add these plants to your garden or foodscape for many years of delicious fresh food.

People have been enjoying blackberries for thousands of years and blackberries are native to North America. This delicious perennial edible can be grown up a fence, trellised, or even on a window sill garden! While you will not get fruit the first year, a healthy blackberry plant can produce fruit for decades.

Blackberry behavior

Blackberry (Rubus fruticosus) plants propagate by sending suckers up from the roots and by generating roots where stems touch the ground. Because of the blackberry’s ability to propagate so readily, some gardeners consider them to be a pest. Rather than looking at this behavior as a negative, you can take advantage of this tenacious fruit producer in your garden!

Blackberries grow from a perennial root system, putting out new biennial stems (canes) each year. In a blackberry cane’s first year, when it is called a primocane, it will reach its full length without producing fruit. In its second year, it becomes a fruit producing floricane. The fruit is produced on racemes found at the tip of lateral buds. After the second year, the cane dies, making room for the next year’s crop. Botanically speaking, blackberries are not berries at all. Like raspberries, they are an aggregate fruit made up of small drupelets.

First and second year canes are often covered with numerous sharp prickles, mistakenly called thorns. Prickle-free (thornless) varieties are available. I have heard from several growers that thornless varieties produce bigger fruit, but that varieties with prickles have far better flavor. Personally, I’ll take quality over quantity any day!

There are two basic cultivars of blackberries: erect and trailing. Erect blackberries have stiff canes that arch. While not completely self-supporting, erect blackberries tend to grow into huge thickets if not pruned. Trailing cultivars, also known as dewberries, will spread horizontally across the ground. If you live in a cold area, there are even late-season blackberry varieties that can produce late summer crops. The University of California provides an excellent list of blackberry cultivars.

How to grow blackberries

Blackberries are rugged. In the wild, they grow best near creeks, in alluvial soil. Blackberries can be grown in containers, as long as they are at least 5 gallons in size. Blackberries can be grown in poor soil and will transform an empty lot into a fruit-producing thicket, left unchecked. Blackberries do best in raised beds where drainage and weeds are more easily controlled. To plant your blackberries, follow these tips for the best results:

• Select a sunny spot with good drainage. Standing water will kill blackberries.
• To improve sun exposure, plant multiple rows in north-south directions.
• If you are going to use a trellis, install it before planting. 
• Dig a hole that is 4-6” deeper and wider than the bare roots or potted plants. If your soil is heavy clay, be sure to rough up the edges of the hole to gives roots a toe-hold.
• Plants should be spaced 2-4’ apart, with 8-10’ between rows.
• Spread the roots out within the hole and cover with aged compost and planting soil.
• Make sure that the crown (where the roots meet the stem) is at the same level as the surrounding soil.
• Cut the new canes to 6” in height at initial planting.
• Water well but do not feed.
• Mulch within 12-18” of each plant to keep weeds down and moisture in.
• If the first summer is hot and dry, water every 7-10 days. Once the plants are established, they will only need 1-2” of water per week, mid-May through October, which is great in areas experiencing drought! I use water collected from the shower, as it heats up.

Pollination is critical for fruit production. If blackberries are being grown indoors, hand-pollination will be needed. To hand-pollinate, simply take a fine paintbrush or Q-tip and touch each flower repeatedly every day until the flower begins to turn brown. To protect your outdoor pollinators and other beneficial insects, avoid using chemical pesticides during bloom time.

Blackberry pruning and training

Like other cane berries, blackberries are very low-maintenance once established. After a cane has produced fruit, it can be removed. This cuts down on the thicket effect and it encourages the root system to generate new canes that will produce even more fruit.

First-year canes can be pruned to a manageable size or trained onto a trellis. It is a good idea to wear long sleeves, long pants, and heavy gloves when working with blackberries. Those prickles are sharp!

Harvesting blackberries

Blackberries are green when they are red. This old saying reminds blackberry growers that unripe blackberries are red. They become ripe 2-3 weeks later, when the fruits are black, but still firm. Do you know how to tell blackberries and raspberries apart? Hint: It’s not the color. The only way to really tell the difference between blackberries and raspberries is to look at the way the fruit comes away from the torus, or stem. If the torus comes with the fruit, it is a blackberry. If the torus breaks away from the fruit, it is a raspberry.

British folklore warns against picking blackberries after Old Michaelmas Day (October 11) because the devil is said to have spit on them! This tradition has a reasonable explanation in science. As cooler, moist weather kicks in, several types of mold can begin to grow on the fruit which can make it toxic. So, enjoy your blackberries before October 11th and leave the rest for the birds!

Blackberry pests & diseases

As rugged as blackberries are, there are still some pests and diseases to watch for. Deer, birds, and other critters will try to enjoy your harvest before you do. Netting can help, but it’s a pain to take off. Many varieties of caterpillar will also happily munch on fruit and leaves, so monitor plants every few days in spring and hand pick those beasties. You can always feed them to your chickens!

Being close cousin to raspberries, blackberries are prone to many of the same pests and diseases. In either case, watch for signs of these blackberry (and raspberry) pests:

• Blackberry aphids (Amphorophora rubi) are large green aphids that cause leaf curl and can transmit disease.
• Crown borers (Pennisetia marginata) are moths that look like yellow jackets. Eggs are laid on the underside of leaflets in autumn. When eggs hatch, the larvae migrate down the stem to the crown, where they overwinter. In spring, the larvae dig burrows into the crown, damaging or killing the plant.
• Raspberry horntail (Hartigia cressoni) are tiny wasps that lay eggs in bramble canes. When the eggs hatch, the larvae girdle the cane and cause wilting and dieback. Remove infected canes.
• Red berry mites (Acalitus essigicause) cause fruit to ripen abnormally. Treat with liquid lime sulfur.
• Spider mites cause yellow stippling of leaves, interfering with photosynthesis. Keep plants dust free and rinse infested plants off with the hose. 

Blackberries may also be infected with the following diseases:

• Anthracnose is a group of fungal diseases that causes cankers on infected wood and can girdle and kill plants. Infected canes should be removed.
• Crown gall is caused by a soil bacterium spread by splashed water. Warts appear on roots and cane bases, stunting growth. Cut out infected canes, disinfecting cutting tools between each cut.
• Dieback can be a viral infection or a physiological disorder caused by freezing or drought. Twigs start dying at the tips and move back toward the base. Damaged canes should be removed.
• Dwarf virus is spread by aphids, causing stunted growth and death. Remove infected plants completely and immediately.
• Leaf and cane spot are fungi that live on leaves and stems, causing leaf drop, sunburn, and reduced yield. Avoid overhead watering and apply fixed copper treatments when necessary.
• Root rots are caused by soil fungi that thrive in moisture. Overwatering should be avoided to prevent this fatal disease. Infected areas should be left fallow for at least 2 years.
• Rusts are another fungal disease that sap the strength from your canes and reduce yield. Rusts can be yellow or orange. There are no treatments available, so diseased plants should be removed, roots and all.
• Verticillium wilt causes floricanes to yellow and fall. Canes turn bluish-black, from the base upward. Remove and dispose of infested canes.

Now, don’t let all those threats to your blackberry crop discourage you from trying this amazing plant. They are only possibilities and blackberries seem to survive against the odds. Even notorious Brown Thumbs have been able to grow blackberries successfully! You can, too!