Kitchen Garden Forum

I know this subject has come up before, but I'd like to find out how everyone's Autumn Bliss raspberries are doing this year. Mine are growing like maniacs - really healthy and happy with hundred of berries per bush.

But now for the bad news... they taste bland, watery, some even taste bad, with hardly any sweetness or flavour. I find myself picking 20 and throwing 8 away. Is this just a bad variety? A bad specimen? Or the endless rain that is doing this? And is there anything I can do to improve the flavour - feed more/less? Last year, they didn't taste very good either (they're 3 years old)

At this point, I'm thinking of pulling my bushes up and replanting with something tastier...

any suggestions gratefully received

Hi BP,
Like you I cannot understand your description of Autumn Bliss. Like you I am picking pounds of them but unlike yours mine are simply full of flavour.
I invested in some Joan J with the idea of grubbing out the Autumn Bliss but when it came to the crunch I simply could not bring myself to do the dastardly deed and so glad am I. My AB are fruiting probably the largest fruit that they have ever produced and the flavour is wonderful. Slightly more tart than in previous years but that is really because of lack of sunshine this awful year.
My raspberries are fed with FYM liberally every year and they are kept as near weed free as possible and take up very little of my time. Apart from that I do nothing for a very rewarding return.
JB.

Are you leaving them a bit too long before picking? I find I do this. I tend to leave them until they turn a deep red but they taste nicer if a little under ripe.
Plus I find all the rain has diluted the flavour of fruit this year too (or maybe lack of sunshine?)

I know little about raspberries, but I've just begun eating our Laxton Epicure apples from our garden, which seem to me to taste more bland than usual. Like Jenny, I'm putting this down to the wet summer. The apples also cropped very heavily and in spite of thinning them [there's another thread about this somewhere], I still left too many on one tree, which has produced lots of very small apples.

mike

I mulched mine this Feb when I cut them down with composted wood shavings from the chicken house and they they are twice as strong as previous years and loaded with huge fruits that taste great. Would work in a similar way to FYM I think, so maybe it's the addition of the organic matter mulch that is the key, rather than just feed.

Worth a try Bigpepperplant before you dig your canes out.

Sue

thanks for the advice everyone - looks like I can blame the weather rather than myself for once

Can't comment on your rasperries, but can only say that the fruit on my domestic cultivars of blackberries are really miserable this year, with only a fraction of the flavour and sweetness they had after last summer's heatwave. I'm sure it is related to the very poor levels of sunshine we've had this year and low sugar levels in the fruit. However if the flavour of your fruit was disappointing after last year's excellent summer, then perhaps there may be something else which is causing the problem such as soil fertility or lack or it, or the position in which they're located, i.e. in too much shade?

We have found that most of our fruit this year has not tasted very good.

It includes plums, tomatoes, raspberries, the earlier greengages.

Some of it has improved as the weeks have gone on.

Johnboy, you may remember that I complained last year about receiving Joan Squire instead of Joan J and how awful they were - and advised me to replant with the latter. Well, lack of time prevented this and this year they have done quite well. Still picking them despite neglect and tasting ok. Different weather, different results. And Glen Ample, usually so reliable, was so disappointing earlier on.

well, just too add my five pennath, I planted a dozen autumn bliss 14 years ago and in my experience they thrive on neglect. I do nothing to them at all,I strim the immediate area around them in the course of general maintainance(which more or less takes care of suckers,)and I get 2 good crops per season and they always taste great to me as long as you pick them at the right time,which is just before they go very dark in colour and pull off of the stalk with the minimum of effort.S.T.