Other Berries & Fruit

January 2, 2022 /

Adding berry bushes and fruiting vines to your orchard brings big benefits in a small space. They extend your harvest season, often producing earlier or later than tree fruits, and they yield heavily with very little room required. Many varieties—like elderberry, muscadine, and pineapple guava—are naturally disease-resistant and low-maintenance. Their blooms attract pollinators, improving fruit set across your whole orchard. They mature quickly, giving you fruit in just 1–2 years. Berries also add nutrition and variety for fresh eating and preserves. Overall, they make your orchard more productive, beautiful, and resilient.

Here’s a little more detail on blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries—still concise, but giving you the useful orchard-planning information you need:

Blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries are some of the most rewarding small fruits to add because they produce heavily, ripen early in the season, and thrive with minimal care. Blackberries are extremely productive, very disease-resistant, and come in thornless varieties that form beautiful, high-yield hedges. Raspberries give you early summer and even fall crops, grow fast, and attract pollinators while taking very little space. Blueberries are long-lived shrubs—often producing for 20–30 years—and they’re naturally pest-resistant, excellent for wildlife, and packed with antioxidants. Together, these three berries provide extended harvest windows, fresh eating, freezing, and baking options, plus they create layered structure and color that make an orchard look full and healthy. They’re some of the easiest and most dependable fruits you can grow.

ELDERBERRIES

Native

  • Self-pollinating / but adding an additional variety will increase your crop
  • Cold-hardy
  • Large fruit clusters ripening for a 4-6 period in summer
  • Elderberries thrive in moist, fertile, well-drained soil, spacing 10′ apart
  • Tolerates a variety of soil types; they prefer a pH of between 5.5-and 6.5
  • Have a shallow root systems, water well for the first year until established
  • Cook elderberries before eating them!

Bob Gordon

  • Self-pollinating / but adding an additional variety will increase your crop
  • Sweeter and bigger berries than other elderberries
  • Berries up to 1/4 inch in diameter
  • Leading juice variety
  • Dark purple
  • Elderberries thrive in moist, fertile, well-drained soil, spacing 10′ apart
  • Tolerant of a wide variety of soil types; they prefer a pH of between 5.5 and 6.5
  • Elderberries have shallow root systems; keep them well watered for the first year until they are established
  • Cook elderberries before eating them!

Adams

  • Self-pollinating / but adding an additional variety will increase your crop
  • Cold-hardy
  • Very juicy, purple berries, large fruit clusters, sweet berries
  • Very large flower heads
  • Excellent for elixirs, pies, syrups, wine…
  • Late ripening / heavy producer
  • Fruit contains a high amount of vitamin C
  • Height 6′ to 12′.
  • Elderberries thrive in moist, fertile, well-drained soil, spacing 10′ apart
  • Tolerant of a wide variety of soil types; they prefer a pH of between 5.5 and 6.5
  • Elderberries have shallow root systems; keep them well watered for the first year until they are established
  • Cook elderberries before eating them!

York

  • Self-pollinating / but adding an additional variety will increase your crop
  • Cold-hardy
  • Care free
  • Produces an exceptionally heavy set of superior blue-black colored fruit
  • Blooms on first year wood; older canes should be removed /cut down each spring.
  • Mature growth is around 6-8′ tall and wide
  • Full sun to partial shade
  • Elderberries thrive in moist, fertile, well-drained soil, spacing 10′ apart
  • Elderberries have shallow root systems; keep them well watered for the first year until they are established.
  • Cold-hardy
  • Cook elderberries before eating them!

VINES/CANES

Kiwi

 Issai (cold hearty)

  • Self-pollinating
  • Cold hardy 
  • Sweet, firm, juicy and healthy
  • Large grape size fuzzless kiwi
  • 20% natural sugar and eight times more vitamin C than oranges
  • Productive, bearing up to 100 pounds of fruit annually
  • Likes partial shade to full sun, loamy well drained soil with a PH of 5.5 – 7.0
  • A sturdy support system should be built before or soon after planting
  • Plants are very pretty when used to cover a wall or fence
  • Heat-tolerant
  • Ripens late August
  • 12 – 20 feet vine at maturity

Ken and Clark

  • Non-self pollinating
  • You need both Ken & Clark for pollintion
  • Cold hardy to -25 degrees
  • Ken’s Red – a female, fruit-bearing plant and Clark -a male, non-fruiting pollinator
  • One of the largest hardy kiwis available and can produce up to 100 lbs. of fruit a year when mature
  • Ken’s Red fruit is large, sweet, smooth-skinned fruit, fuzzless kiwi with a reddish-purple skin & flesh
  • Fruit is eaten whole, like a grape
  • Some say it taste like cranberry and cherry and is sweeter than the fuzzy kiwi
  • Fruit is fairly large and is sweet and tasty
  • Fruit continues to stay firm and does not bruise easily
  • One Clark, male plant can pollinate up to 6-8 female plants if planted within 50 feet
  • The kiwi plants require a sturdy trellis or support structure, a sunny location with well-drained soil

MUSCADINES

Black Ison

  • Self-pollinating
  • Contains 19% sugar and has excellent size and production
  • Produces some of the best wine available because of its taste and flavor
  • Skin is edible and the most nutritious part of the grape
  • Produces beautiful black  large clusters and is great for all uses
  • Fruit yield 60+ lbs
  • Fruit size 1 1/8 “
  • Spread 15-20 ft   

Cowart

  • Self-pollinating
  • Excellent flavor, large clusters and medium size fruit
  •  Fruit with edible skin and is very productive
  • Cold hardy and disease resistant
  • 17% sugar

Pam

  • Requires Pollination – Triumph and Black Ison are good pollinators
  • Pam must be planted within 50 ft. of a self-fertile variety to produce fruit
  • Bronze colored 1 ½” fruit containing 21% sugar
  • Heaviest producing muscadine
  • Produces the largest clusters of all female varieties, 12 to 15 grapes
  • Fruit is dry scar
  • The skin is edible
  • Very disease resistant

Triumph

  • Self-pollinating
  • Medium size bronze 1″fruit 
  • Contains 18% sugar
  • Cold hardy, disease resistant
  • Fruit is dry scar

Lane

  • Self-pollinating
  • Lane is recommended as an early season black muscadine
  • Flesh is noticeably more firm than most other muscadines
  • Crisp skin and firm pulp which adheres to the skin.
  • Berries have a sweet and mild muscadine flavor
  • Very sweet with 19% sugar

Summit

  • Non-self pollinating
  • Bears excellent quality fruit
  • Fruit is medium to large size
  • Consistent producer & vigorous growth
  • Very cold hardy and disease resistant
  • 20% sugar.

GRAPE

Concord

  • Self-pollinating
  • Exceptional hardy
  • Can Fruit the 1st year
  • Disease resistance
  • Heat-tolerant
  • It will be approximately 8 – 10′ tall x 10 – 12′ wide when mature
  • Space plants 10 – 12′ apart
  • One of the most popular grapes for jellies & jams  

Cawtaba

  • Self-pollinating
  • Medium redish purple, large cluster grape
  • Sweet flavor / sweeter than the Concord grape
  • Most often used in making wine, jam, jellies and juices

BLACKBERRIES

Ponca Thornless Blackberry

  • Self-pollinating/ but adding an additional variety will increase of your crop
  • Sweetest, most flavorful blackberry, developed from the Arkansas program
  • Many say “the pinnacle of flavor”
  • Thorn-less blackberry 
  • Growth is upright
  • Early Ripening Season
  • Grows thorn-less 4-6′ canes 
  • No trellis needed but can be used
  • Yield potential is high
  • Exceptional for local-markets and home gardens
  • Disease-free
  • *Floricane-fruiting berries produce a crop of summer fruit once per year, in its second year.

Triple Crown

  •  Self-pollinating/ but adding an additional variety will increase of your crop
  • Consistent huge fruit yields year after year
  • Semi-erect, the canes can be trellised or pruned in summer to an easy picking height of 42″
  •  Very hardy variety & disease resistance
  • Very large juicy sweet berries
  • Thorn-less blackberry 
  • Triple Crown, a mid – season producer, would be a good choice for extending the blackberry season

RASPBERRIES

Prelude

  • Self-pollinating
  • Earliest summer harvest for red raspberries
  • An everbearing red raspberry
  • Shorter stature, with sturdy canes that do not require support
  • Sugary sweet and bursting with juice, medium to large size fruit
  • Freezes well
  • Cold hardy
  • Wonderful for fresh eating freezing, canning, cooking
  • An everbearing red raspberry
  • Everbearing raspberries will produce only fall fruit during their first year. In their second year, they will make fruit two times – both in the summer and the fall.

Canby

  • Self – pollinating
  • Nearly thornless
  • Cold hardy and disease resistant
  • Produces large bright red berries
  • Known for its high yields
  • Plant near a fence or wall for support or trellis
  • Ideal for freezing, canning, cooking, and fresh eating
  • Produces berries on 1 year growth

Fall Gold

  • Self – pollinating
  • They are a thormy variety
  • Generally considered sweeter and less tart than most red rasberries
  • A sweet berry, with a yellow-gold color
  • Outstanding, everbearing variety
  • Very sweet and flavorful, large, golden-yellow berries,
  • Great for fresh eating, preserves and freezing
  • Fall Gold can be mowed after harvest in the fall and will bear good crops the following summer without staking
  • These are primocanes also known as everbearing
  • Best used for fresh eating, freat for deserts pies, jam and jellies
  • *Everbearing raspberries will produce only fall fruit during their first year. In their second year, they will make fruit two times – both in the summer and the fall.