Friday, March 30, 2012

Raspberry Patch Redux


The right side of the image is a new planting of Himbo Top red raspberries. Folks who have picked raspberries from our little patch in the past will recognize that the image is the area we previously grew Kiwi Gold raspberries. We originally planted Kiwi Gold to have a yellow raspberry to go along with Heritage and Autumn Bitten, our red raspberries. While we really like the taste of Kiwi Gold, when picked ripe, we and our customers found it difficult to identify the color phase when Kiwi Gold is at its best flavor. This difficulty caused us to make the decision to replace the Kiwi Gold with Himbo Top.

Because of disease concerns it is not advisable to replant raspberries in an area that previously grew raspberries so, although not ideal, our workaround was to plant the Himbo Top in the walking path next to the Kiwi Gold and use the Kiwi Gold row as the new walking path. We really like the flavor profile, picking characteristics, and disease resistance of Himbo Top and look forward to trying them in a year or two.