It’s dewberry season here in Lower Alabama and my littler kids are out hunting the property every day for ripe berries.
Late Sunday afternoon we hunted up enough cups of them for Rachel to bake two cobblers.
If you look closely, you’ll see some white mulberries mixed in. Our white mulberry in the Grocery Row Gardens only made a few handfuls of fruit this year due to the late frosts.
While hunting, I discovered one particular dewberry plant with larger, sweeter fruit. Look at the berries on the lower left compared to the “normal” dewberries on the upper right:
Though many people dislike dewberries due to their vicious thorns and invading habit, I’ll propagate a few of these for the nursery. This one plant was loaded with large, sweet, fruit. It would be worth growing in the right location. The original plant is growing beneath a popcorn tree alongside our driveway. Just gotta remember not to mow it.
There was a time in the past where I was doing a property consultation and came across a large, sweet wild blackberry – and failed to take cuttings. I have regretted it ever since.
There are a lot of genetic resources out in the wild. If you come across something wonderful, why not propagate it?
5 responses to “An “Improved” Wild Dewberry?”
We have lots and lots of wild dewberry plants, I’ll have to see about propagating those that produce good berries!
There was a time I discovered the biggest dewberries you could imagine, size of my thumb, growing wild at the edges of the park behind the soccer field fencing. We gathered two gallons in I think 2 hours, which felt incredible to us because we’re new to berry picking and it usually goes way slower. Guess what happened to them. Those monsters sprayed ’em with some kind of poison the next year and they never, never made a comeback. You’d see the occasional straggling bramble but they’d never fruit.
Someone shared a similar story about a wild red mulberry they found with great fruit. Later was killed by the power company. Obnoxious.
Learn something everyday, had never heard of dewberries. Always thought these were blackberries since I was a kid. I live in a typical residential area and these are considered weeds to everyone. I’ve kept them in a corner of my backyard and always get enough for 2 cobblers. Also, not sure if this is a hack, but it worked for me. I’m in NE Florida and before the freezes (down to 21), I went down the street and brought home bagged leaves that were on my neighbors curb. I placed 2 around my 8 ft. papaya trees like a clamshell and tied them together with rope. Stacked another 2 on top of that and tied them. After the freezes all done. Sure enough, trees had been damaged down to where the bags were. I cut my 2 trees at that point about 4 ft. tree left…currently multiple branches have appeared on both trunks. So, neighbors leaves were able to keep tropical papaya alive at 21 degrees. Now excited for more fruit.
Good idea. Lots of insulation there!