{"id":1155,"date":"2014-08-14T18:01:34","date_gmt":"2014-08-15T01:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/llenrocweb.com\/?p=1155"},"modified":"2017-07-01T10:03:29","modified_gmt":"2017-07-01T17:03:29","slug":"southern-california-blackberry-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/llenrocfarm.com\/lead\/southern-california-blackberry-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern California Blackberry Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Couldn’t believe the size and flavor of these berries.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, we may only get 1 pound total – we only have one plant with 3 canes. I’m having vanilla ice cream with Blackberry syrup!<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0465\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 7:46 AM, <Bob> wrote:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unless that is a hand from a very small person, those are big berries!<\/p>\n

Do you know what variety? I planted starts from about 4 different blackberries last winter, and they are healthily growing now, but no fruit until next year. I hope to come up with something approaching your obvious successes.<\/p>\n

At the same time, I planted a big row of raspberries that were all from mature plants taken from an individual who said they were too productive and they couldn\u2019t use so many berries. They are right now covered with a million small berries growing rapidly to eating size. I know that we will have to invite friends in to help harvest!<\/p>\n

Happy ice cream with blackberry syrup!<\/p>\n

Bob<\/p>\n

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On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 12:07 AM, <Stephen> wrote:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here’s a big handful… I’ll have to look up the variety. I have to admit that we knew very little about Blackberries before this.<\/p>\n

We see that there will be only 3 canes (primocanes) that can flower for next year, so we may not get many.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0463\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 10:59 AM, <Evie> wrote:<\/strong><\/p>\n

They are so big you need a knife and fork. Yum<\/p>\n

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On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 10:10 PM, <Stephen> wrote:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reflecting back on things, this relatively tiny little blackberry plant contributed so much to the richness of life at the Caldwell Townhouse.<\/p>\n

We put the pot right next to the chairs where we sit to enjoy our afternoons and evenings, so it was always part of the conversation. We thought that after it almost died last year when we were up in Sequim and Portland; that it wouldn’t ever blossom. But amazingly, one day we noticed a little growth on the canes and within 2-3 weeks, we had leaves all over the place. In another month, pretty little blossom clusters appeared and we had high hopes for a good harvest.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0263\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then I noticed a little leaf damage and discovered tiny little inchworms. They entertained me for several weeks before I had to shoo them away.<\/p>\n

New canes started to develop about the same time as the flowers appeared, and they shot up quickly and I clipped them off at 5′ on the 4th of July.<\/p>\n

Our resident hummingbird, grumpy old Eric the Red, sits on one of the canes while he is resting between his efforts to terrorize every other hummingbird that dares to get too close. When he wants to approach the feeder when we’re outside, he announces his intentions by scolding at us to get us to move away – we never do, and it doesn’t stop him.<\/p>\n

Finally, the berries appeared and the weight of the developing fruit bent one cane in half, and although we worried about it, the berries kept growing.<\/p>\n

Last week we decided not to wait any longer and picked everything we could. We ended up with enough for a couple of Blackberry Lemondrop Martinis as well as about a cup of syrup which was great with Vanilla Ice Cream!<\/p>\n

On a sadder note, while I was away at Luca’s birthday party, Colleen discovered a tiny, newborn, baby something that had been abandoned and was just squirming around on our patio near the blackberry pot.<\/p>\n

When I got home, I told her that there was nothing she could do and that it would most likely be dead by morning. Well, it seems that I totally underestimated her mothering instinct! \u00a0There she was at 11:00 at night out on the patio cradling the little thing on a napkin in her hands. \u00a0I felt bad about what I had said and went out to take a better look at it.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6678\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I guessed that it was a newborn squirrel and confirmed it on the internet. It turns out that even though baby squirrels are not that difficult to care for, we didn’t have what we needed – all that we could do at midnight on Saturday was try to get it to take a little bit of watered down evaporated milk. \u00a0It took a little and by 1:00 am, Colleen was prepared to check on it every couple of hours.<\/p>\n

We tried, but by morning, little “Rocket J” was no more.<\/p>\n

We covered the tiny body with a blackberry leaf, laid a berry next to him and wrapped him up in some hummingbird nest batting. The only thing left was to give him a corner of the garden.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

They are big blackberries…<\/p>\n

SC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Couldn’t believe the size and flavor of these berries. Unfortunately, we may only get 1 pound total – we only have one plant with 3 canes. I’m having vanilla ice cream with Blackberry syrup! On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 7:46 AM, <Bob> wrote: Unless that is a hand from a very small person, those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/llenrocfarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/llenrocfarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/llenrocfarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/llenrocfarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/llenrocfarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/llenrocfarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/llenrocfarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/llenrocfarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/llenrocfarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/llenrocfarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}