It has been a long time since I posted. The reasons are legion. But the garden has been something of a disaster this year. My first attempt at growing from seed was at the age of 8 when I grew some scarlet salvias, annual dianthus and Livingstone daisies. I had to germinate them on the windowsill of my bedroom, in an unheated Victorian vicarage, behind lead-light windows and they were planted out in yellow, sticky clay that had not been cultivated for years. Yet I had better results than I have this year with a propagator and greenhouse. I was determined not to post until I had something positive to say, so uploaded photos of snails stripping the leaves on the apple trees which were never published, nor the strange problem that has distorted and killed the alstroemerias in the polytunnel that are the mainstay of my charity flowers at the gate. So many shrubs have died because of winter waterlogging and now I am able to get on the garden and try to get up to date I am astonished by the leatherjackets (cranefly larvae) in the soil. I am even having dreams about them. And there, I have said it all. On to better things.

Several years ago I planted some honey berries (haskap berries) (Lonicera caerulea) in the garden. They were planted between the apple trees on either side of the drive. They were small when planted, only about 20cm high with few stems. Because they are supposed to benefit from cross fertilisation I planted three each of six varieties. The stated good things about them is that they are very hardy, are not fussy about soil (a big advantage because the berries are comparable with blueberries, which need acid soil). The berries ripen before most other berries. In addition, the berries knock blueberries into the long grass when it comes to antioxidants.

So how have they performed? The soil they are growing in is rather heavy and poorly drained, so not ideal. As a result the plants have not grown as much as I would expect. They are still only about 60cm high and wide, though their habit varies. My winters are not likely to test the hardiness of the plants. One advantage of the plants is that they start to crop when very small so you get a taste within two years. This has been the first year I have had a decent crop and I picked about 2.5kg. That is not an enormous crop off 18 plants! But I do feel that this is just the start. Picking the small berries is very fiddly. The berries do not seem to attract blackbirds, or that is what I would have said until this morning when I went to take a photo of the berries and all those I had left for a last pick have vanished! The berries do ripen over more than a week and you have to go over the plants a couple of times. They turn ‘black’ before they are completely ripe and when fully ripe they tend to drop off or at least fall into your hand when you pick them. But that means when you pick them they come off cleanly without a stalk so kitchen processing is not too taxing, unlike black currants!

I have no idea why they are called honey berries – it certainly is not because they are honey-sweet! Tart is the word! But since I dislike blueberries because they are so bland it would be churlish to criticise honey berries for having a bit of character!

I am, basically, a fan so I need to make a few other observations. The creamy white flowers, held in pairs along the previous year’s stems, open very early, from late February onwards, and they are popular with bumble bees so I would suggest this plant is good for wildlife. The very early flowers do seem to be damaged by frost but they bloom for many weeks or even months and I think it unlikely that cold springs would completely ruin the crop. They are generally pest-free but aphids will attack the new shoots sometimes (not this year so far) but cuckoo spit (frog hopper) does like the new shoots. This may be because the plants are beside long grass planted with daffs, so just cut, and that may encourage this insect. It is not really harmful so I am not concerned.

We picked the berries over the past week, freezing them as we went. The bushes are still small so picking requires a lot of crawling around. I decided to make jam yesterday and used a basic recipe of equal quantities berries and sugar. I am not a confident jam maker and have, in the past, ended up with jars of syrup (still useful on porridge but not quite jam) but honey berries are supposed to have lots of pectin and I have a jam thermometer. To 1.5kg of berries (and the same of sugar) I added the juice of one lemon, which some recipes suggest, and off I went.

Recipes always seem to underestimate the time you have to boil jam and it is not something you can leave once you have begun! The jam was very liquid but, after more than 30 minutes, the temperature was more than 220F and my jam on the cold plate was just about wrinkled so I was happy it was, at last, jam. As it cooled it set perfectly and I have eight jars of jam, of various sizes.

And so, breakfast today was muffins and butter and honey berry jam. The jam is quite ‘sharp’ and quite like blackcurrant jam but not quite the same. It is very very dark purple and shiny and really good. A big advantage is that the pips are tiny and not noticeable in the jam.

So, are honey berries worth growing? I would say yes. They are easy to grow, need no special treatment or pruning and are free from most problems. They are beneficial for wildlife. They are fiddly to pick and it will take a while before you get a good crop. And blackbirds will take them, though not as readily as they strip my red currants! The fruit are a bit ‘sharp’ to eat raw though if you get them when fully ripe they are sweet. The jam is great. I like blackcurrant and gooseberry jam best, so my Jostaberries (a cross of the two) all get made into jam. And the Jostaberry is packed with (unripe) fruit at the moment. Something very positive to end the week.

And staying on the purple theme.

A year or so ago I found that there was a (new) double Geranium phaeum called ‘Joseph Green’. I will give details in a few days but it is a recent introduction that was found as a self-sown seedling in a garden. Geranium phaeum does well here and I like it for the dusky purple flowers and the fact that the bees adore it. I like it so much that I also have a lilac and white form and I will be adding more. But a double was very new and the flowers looked amazing with the green ‘bits’ in the flowers. I finally managed to get a plant and it had pride of place in a newly replanted bed, in part shade and it grew. And a few weeks ago it flowered. (I picked off a stem to take the photo).

I am almost as frustrated as the poor bees that can’t find anything satisfying in the flowers. The flowers are truly strange and, perhaps, beautiful but they suffer from the curse of so many double flowers – the stems flop over under the weight of the flowers. No other ‘phaeum’ in the garden is flopping, and they are not in sunnier spots. I am fed up planting flowers for slugs to eat and since only the slugs will see the flowers I am a bit gutted. This is only an initial assessment but I am not won over yet – but there is time.

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