What with the lower temperatures and rainy days, I definitely get the feeling that summer is well and truly over. And whilst I’m still happily picking my autumn raspberries and having the odd exciting find of a ‘Mara des bois’ strawberry, I feel a tad bereft that my Japanese wineberries are also finished for the year. Out of all the fruit that I’ve grown this summer, this tiny berry has been the most delicious of them all.
I have to admit that my berry growing repertoire isn’t that extensive (just strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries and wild strawberries). I’ve never tasted (let alone grown) a tayberry or a goji berry, but each time I’ve nibbled a few of these intense sweetie-like berries, they’ve hit my taste buds like nothing else.
Compared to my strident Polka raspberries, it takes a fair old while to fill a whole bowl, but to be honest, I prefer eating them straight from the cane, preferably after they’ve been warmed by the gentle rays of the sun for an hour or two. As they’re not great travellers ( their delicate petite form tends to crumble if you try to move them about once they’ve been picked), I can’t ever see these berries hitting the supermarkets, but that’s all the more reason in my book to have a go at growing your own.
Earlier this year, I tried a few different ways of training their pink stems, tying some along bamboo canes and twirling others around pieces of wire. All have produced copious amounts of berries, so I reckon that this fruit can be coaxed into a myriad of shapes and sizes and can be squeezed into the tightest of spaces if necessary.
If you fancy growing your own, now is the perfect time to order a bare-rooted plant for a November/ December delivery. Similarly to blackberries and summer raspberries, they fruit on canes produced the previous year, so it will be a couple of years before you get to taste these gems. However gardening is often about the long game, and in this case it certainly will be worth the wait.
P.S. I received an email asking about pruning Japanese wineberries. You can prune old canes that your plant produced fruit on this year (about half of the canes) anytime from now until late winter. Here’s a post about pruning them. Be careful not to prune the new pink canes though, as these are the canes which will provide fruit for next year!
P.P.S Just spoken to a friend, Tanya, who’s a mighty fine cook and would love to have a go at growing some Japanese wineberries. I’ve since popped out into the garden and put the tip of one of the canes into a pot of soil and she will have a new plant of her own next spring/summer. It’s as easy as that. As soon as the cane touches the soil it will start making roots, a bit like a giant strawberry runner. And the new plant should be fruiting in 2015!
Out of my shed 
I’ve been meaning to plant some of these after reading about them in Mark Diacono’s brilliant Taste of the Unexpected book. Very tempted to order now I’ve heard you raving about the flavour too.
Hi Andrea, Japanese wineberries seem to have grown on me year after year. Even though they are tiny little berries, it doesn’t take more than a berry or two to really make my day. If I’m working in the garden, I’ll have a few, work a bit, return for a few more, weed a little more etc. etc…..gardening can be blissful at times!
They will grow and fruit in shade too, and birds leave them alone!
Good point Tessa. Mine get sun for about half the day- up until about 2pm. Haven’t grown them in complete shade though. And yes thankfully, I haven’t had to fight off the birds for these.
They are not something you see in New England. I’d love to give them a try but can’t find a US company that sells them. We do have lots of blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. Berries are a good thing. 🙂
Hi Judy, you’re right. Berries are a splendid thing and really worth growing your own for their great taste. Sorry to hear Japanese wineberries aren’t available across the pond- you’ve made me wonder now-when (and by who) were Japanese wineberries first introduced into the UK? Off to find out….
p.s. Hi Judy, started to research when JW were introduced into the UK and came across this Connecticut blog http://farmersdaughterct.wordpress.com/ where she was growing wineberries-Possibly the farmer’s daughter may know where to acquire some canes?
I found her post and asked if she knew where I could purchase some plants/cane. Thank you so much for the follow up.
Do try growing redcurrants as well! They have the intense flavour of cranberries but are much easier to grow in the UK, happy in east- or even north-facing situations. Eaten fresh or cooked, with a little sugar in each case, they knock spots off anything else for sheer depth of flavour.
Diana, if I can squeeze in a plant or two, will defintely try redcurrants out this year, although I do love the fact that with japanese wineberries, strawberries and blackberries, if really ripe, no extra sugar is needed.
No sugar is definitely ideal but some berries have such high acidity (even when really ripe) that you have to trade off using a little sugar to benefit fully from the intense flavour. I ignored all the cookbook instructions about quantities of sugar and got away with using only a couple of tablespoons to nearly a pound of fruit.
I’ve had a great year with them too and I can endorse the fact that they don’t travel. About three feet seems to be the max…
Hi Kate, you made me laugh! Filling a whole bowl took a fair amount of restraint, but they didn’t last long having taken the pic.
Look great and probably better than my rasspberries 😛
Hi Apolonia, I love my autumn raspberries too, but I just found the JW especially delicious this year.
I agree with your comment about ‘Polka’ not traveling well or keeping well Naomi, but as I tend to snack on them throughout the day at the allotment this is not a problem 🙂 Am still to be convinced by Japanese wineberries but in complete accord with Diana about red currants.
Hi Anna and Diana, Red currants now on my bare-root ordering list for this year! Many thanks for the recommendation. Always good to try out something that you haven’t tried (growing or eating) before!
I bought my redcurrant (and blackcurrant) bushes in pots from Columbia Road market, if you can get there. The redcurrant took a couple of years to produce more than a handful of berries. (The blackcurrant sulked until it was moved into the sunniest part of the garden…!)
They are delicious, and the plants are pretty robust too – mine has had to be moved a couple of times.
Hi NMG, Had to move mine too, but they seemed to take it well, even producing fruit the following summer.
I’m sure you’ve posted about those berries before but without seeing them next to a raspberry I had no idea they were so diddy! They are so cute!!! 🙂
Hi Anna, have to admit these Polka raspberries are whoppers, but even so, wineberries are a small fruit. They are absolutely packed with flavour and sweetness though and I love their jewel like appearance.