We have started a new project on the farm. For those of you who visited our farm in 2013 you saw that the berry barn was not finished. We have just started wiring the barn. The meter socket and the disconnects are mounted on the side of the barn. Lenny, the Oregon state electrical inspector and Larry from Pacific Power have both been invaluable in answering questions about how the wiring should be done to be safe and meet the electrical code. We hope to have the barn wired in the next several months. When the wiring and plumbing is all done, we will have a much larger cooler and a freezer so that we will have frozen berries available when we do not have fresh berries. With the new kitchen we will be able to explore making jellies, jams and other fruit products.
We will be planting two new raspberry varieties this spring. Tulamagic and Cowichan. Tulamagic is a variety from Switzerland. It is a cross between Tulameen and Autumn Bliss. It is an early variety that should give us raspberries starting in late June. Cowichan is a variety developed in British Columbia. It is supposed to handle the heat better than many varieties. We hope this variety will provide good quality berries when we have a hot summer.
We are also planting 2 new blackberry varieties : Boysenberry and Newberry. Many of you will know of the Boysenberry. This is believed to be a blackberry raspberry cross developed by Rudolph Boysen in California. He later abandoned this berry. Walter Knott, of Knott's Berry Farm, heard of this berry and eventually found several vines struggling to survive in a field of weeds. He took them to his farm and started growing them, so that we can enjoy them today.
The Newberry is also a blackberry/raspberry cross developed by Oregon State
and the USDA. It has Marion berry and Boysenberry in its pedigree. It also is about 1 month earlier than Triple Crown blackberry. These are berries that are grown in California and Western Oregon-Washington and we do not know how they will do in our climate, but we have high hopes for them.
To all of our customers we look forward to seeing you this coming summer and we wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year.
We will be planting two new raspberry varieties this spring. Tulamagic and Cowichan. Tulamagic is a variety from Switzerland. It is a cross between Tulameen and Autumn Bliss. It is an early variety that should give us raspberries starting in late June. Cowichan is a variety developed in British Columbia. It is supposed to handle the heat better than many varieties. We hope this variety will provide good quality berries when we have a hot summer.
We are also planting 2 new blackberry varieties : Boysenberry and Newberry. Many of you will know of the Boysenberry. This is believed to be a blackberry raspberry cross developed by Rudolph Boysen in California. He later abandoned this berry. Walter Knott, of Knott's Berry Farm, heard of this berry and eventually found several vines struggling to survive in a field of weeds. He took them to his farm and started growing them, so that we can enjoy them today.
The Newberry is also a blackberry/raspberry cross developed by Oregon State
and the USDA. It has Marion berry and Boysenberry in its pedigree. It also is about 1 month earlier than Triple Crown blackberry. These are berries that are grown in California and Western Oregon-Washington and we do not know how they will do in our climate, but we have high hopes for them.
To all of our customers we look forward to seeing you this coming summer and we wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year.