What a excellent year for Boysenberries. Bumper crop and panic setting in. The panic is about the freezers that are bout to reach their maximum load......and yes before your ask...we have been doing fantastic sales too.
Getting up and out to the field by 6:00 a.m. for harvesting....it's a race against time. Farmer Deno now has help out there....we are both working 6 hours in the morning and then again after it cools off in the evening. This schedule will be so...for at least four weeks. Harvesting the ripe berries daily ....will keep the birds away from this field. Birds will not eat the unripe berries.
But I tell you......leave a ripe one on that vine and it wont be there at the next sunrise!
Since our farm is a sustainable farm......Re-purpose is a favorite tool. Out there in the berries patch we use harvesting containers that are made with plastic milk jugs. Easy to cut out as shown...I then add a loop wire to the handle. That loop is used to hang the jug on the training trellis wire...so we have a hands free situation. Picking berries does require two free hands.
Experimenting with the berries crops for the last few years.....I have found that once those berries start turning red (not blue)......I start flooding the patch every night. This is producing far plumper berries.... and the extra water seems to be keeping the immediate area slightly cooler ....allowing the fruit to ripen slower. Too fast of a ripe results with a smaller berry.
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