Best Variety for Container Growing/Preserves?

[ross]

Hello everyone,

Part of my family is from Tennessee and they brought me some amazing blueberry preserves this fall from Nashville Jam Co. Never having such fresh jam before... I could not believe how good it was, and now I want to make my own, so as the title says.. I'm wondering if there's a variety that is recommended for preserves & container growing.

Bonus question: About how much preserves will one mature blueberry plant growing in a container get me? What sized container for full maturity?

-Ross

[ross]

So I pretty much found everything I need to know here: http://www.blueberrycroft.com/cms/fa...and-making-jam

If anyone wants to add anything, feel free!

[Gina]

Hi Ross, good luck with the preserves. For better flavor, I'd let the berries get fully ripe. But as the article says, that means you might have more pectin/setting issues. I want to make some blueberry sauce for putting over vanilla ice cream this year - just canned berries, no added sugar. Yum.

You ask how many berries per plant in containers. I don't know - that sort of depends on the age and health of the plants. I grow all of mine in containers, and for convenience, I've settled on 15 gallons for all of them. Smaller is too small, and IMO, larger doesn't help that much in terms of growth - and makes dealing with the potted plant just plain too difficult.

[drew51]

I make jam all the time. One of my favorites is black and blue jam. That is blackberries and blueberries. The blackberries are full of pectin. It easily gels. Very good too. The article mentions Northern Highbush blueberries that might not grow in your area. They probably will, the colder you are the more northern's make sense. But the best jam no doubt is from tart berries and usually wild blackberries or huckleberries would make the best jam hands down! If you want to make just a blueberry jam try using a calcium gel instead of pectin. it gels every time! Takes all the skill out of it! Also you can use as little or as much sugar as you want. I use the product to make super low sugar products, and on hard to gel fruits. Pomona brand is the one to use. Hard to find, you can buy it on Amazon. For pectin I much prefer the no sugar pectin, which is not true, you just have to use less sugar. I'm skilled at gelling jams so I can do it quickly with a 2 to 1 ratio. No sugar pectin directions say to use a 1 to 1 ratio, and regular pectin is even more! Way too much sugar for me. It can be done with a 2 to 1 ratio of fruit to sugar. And that's prepped fruit, not raw.(heated, seeds removed, liquefied). I have an extra jar of the black and blue, if you pay postage you can try it. PM me if interested.

I just made Golden raspberry about a month ago, seed removed.


This last June I harvested my white strawberries and made preserves, excellent stuff!



I don't have any photos of the black and blue jam, I used Chandler blueberries and many different varieties of blackberries from my garden. Here are Chandler blueberries and Natchez blackberries I picked from the garden.

[drew51]

On containers as Gina states, really any blueberry can be grown in containers. it's going to take about 3 years before you'll produce enough blueberries for jam,a and that is if you master the skill of growing them. I would get 4 bushes to make sure you have enough berries. In 5 years each plant will make enough for jam! My plants are going on 4 years old, but I have 7 of them, so had enough for jam this last year, first year I did ( 3 years old last season). Here's the Chandler plant in flower last year, 3rd leaf. Oh I also have to net the plants else the bird would take every single berry. Also the plant is really 5 years old as it was 2 years old when I bought it.
They live about 50 years. They can become unproductive after 15 years if not well pruned and maintained. After about 6 years they should produce around 20 pounds a plant if in ground. This is in ground btw.


Next year is going to be a bad blueberry year for me. I lost one of my plants. 4 are in pots, and they started growing this last warm spell, which means I'm going to lose all fruit on them! Crap! I store in the garage as they are a lot less hardy in pots. Next year though I'm putting them in the shed. The attached garage is too warm for them. Perfect for my figs though! Lesson learned at a great cost! I'm losing about 10 pounds of blueberries! I still have 2 in ground that will produce. The third died and a new plant is going in there next spring, but it is a new plant, so I have wait a few years for production to be decent. Bummed I lost the plant. A Toro cultivar. One of my favorites, the berries are super sweet, yet very flavorful. I'm buying another Toro, I have to have that cultivar! So in ground I have Liberty and Chandler. In pots I have Legacy, Sweetcrisp, Indigocrisp, and Cara's Choice. All great cultivars! The indigocrisp is new, so wasn't going to produce. Hope it's OK even? Not really a plant for my zone. They were put in the shed for the rest of the winter, but the flower buds no doubt are toast! It's below freezing right now and the fruit buds are all green, bummed! Well it's all part of the learning process, stuff happens! I still have strawberries, raspberries, currants, gooseberries, blackberries, figs. peaches, plums, and pluots! So I'll be fine! Plus that Chandler is going to produce pounds of berries by itself anyway, so will Liberty!

[Thepodpiper]

Ross, it is best to get multiple varieties if you want a larger harvest. Like Andrew said make sure you net them or the birds will eat every
one.

When canning the fresh berries do you leave them whole?

[drew51]

Ross, it is best to get multiple varieties if you want a larger harvest. Like Andrew said make sure you net them or the birds will eat every
one.

When canning the fresh berries do you leave them whole?

I tried it both ways and I preferred the berries crushed. I do like to use whole strawberries when making strawberry preserves. I heat the mix up and crush with a potato masher. I use a very fine strainer. Much of the skins appears to break down, Not really sure as I remove some pulp (and seeds) from the blackberries in the strainer, it might be there too. I can't tell? Whole I would call it preserves, strained I call it jam, not jelly as I'm not using a jelly bag. Some pulp is in the mix. A food mill does a better job, more of the pulp is pushed through. But the strainer only takes 5 minutes. And no clean up either. I do have a food mill, and have used it. Now I only use the food mill to remove seeds and skin on tomatoes. I make tomato sauce every year.

[Thepodpiper]

I'm looking at canning them fresh without adding anything

[drew51]

Yes, never thought of that. Well I was talking jams preserves and such. I never just canned them.
Here's some info, use recipe at your own risk! I would think you would add lemon/lime or citric acid as pH needs to be below I think? 4.6 to discourage botulism growth. Yet is does not call for any so use at own risk.
http://foodpreservation.about.com/od...ar.htm#showall

[drew51]

OK, the recipe should be fine! Blueberries are very acidic!
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/food-ph-d_403.html

I'm going to try this too now!

[Gina]

Thanks for that info.

[Gina]

I'm looking at canning them fresh without adding anything

Same here. I've canned apricots and peaches and plums (and tomatoes) with no sugar or anything, and only a small amount of water to get them cooking before mashing/blending. Not sure what blueberries will need, but I'll find out.

I can hardly wait...

[drew51]

I want to try too, but will have to wait a year and a half! My wife will eat what blueberries I get this year.
This year I'm growing a couple excellent green tomatoes (when ripe) to make green ketchup! I also grow tomatoes in containers and I want to try some from The Dwarf Tomato Project which so far has produced 60 cultivars. It will be nice to have a small tomato plant that produces big tomatoes easy to cage in a pot. I preserve peaches but prefer to freeze them. I like the way they taste. I want to grow Indian Blood Cling to get a firmer peach and I'm a huge fan of red fleshed peaches and nectarines (really white flesh). I have some Indian Blood scion I'll be grating unto my trees this year. Actually I have all kinds of scion.
I can't wait to get more Arctic Glo nectarines, my favorite tree!

[ross]

Hey! Be happy that you've got a garden this time of year, but yeah.. definitely looking forward to trying some new varieties.

[Sarahkt]

I know, I shouldn't complain about the winter garden, but ... store-bought tomatoes are not all what they could be.

[drew51]

It tastes better than it looks! I also like Indian Free peach too!
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...hoto/004_2.jpg

[ross]

I've been super busy this weekend, but I'm so glad to see such awesome response. Thanks everyone. This really helps.