Harvesting fruit from trees along the Front Range is hit or miss. We’re often hit with a late-spring frost that guarantees we’ll miss our fresh peaches, apricots and other stone fruits.
But life isn’t just a bowl of cherries; it’s also filled with raspberries, strawberries and blueberries. Being able to go berry picking in your own backyard is one of life’s simple pleasures.
The two hardy brambles recommended for planting in our area are red and yellow raspberries. Other bramble fruits, like black raspberries and blackberries, don’t fare as well over cold Colorado winters.
Red raspberries, like Heritage and Redwing, bear fruit in late summer or early fall in the first year they’re planted. These raspberries are adaptable to ordinary garden soils, as long as they aren’t planted where tomatoes, peppers, eggplant or strawberries have previously grown.
The two cultivars of everbearing strawberries developed by the USDA Horticulture Field Station in Cheyenne are also good choices. Ogallala and Fort Laramie are varieties that produce two crops of strawberries each season, one in June and another in early fall.
Plant the strawberry patch in a sunny area that’s protected from wind and where it can remain for several years. It’s time to fill the berry basket when strawberries turn red-ripe and, if any should find their way to the kitchen from the garden, prepare or freeze them right away.
Even though Colorado’s alkaline soils aren’t hospitable to blueberries, new research shows blueberries can grow here using special soil mixtures and a pot-in-pot system.
CSU researchers tested Northblue, Bluegold, Polaris, Chippewa and Bluetta. They dug a hole in the ground, placed a large pot in the planting hole and then put a potted blueberry in that pot. This method allowed for the plants to be grown in their preferred acidic soil.
Researchers also conducted the experiment on a home patio, keeping plants covered with burlap during the winter.
For more information about the blueberry project, visit .
Read more of Jodi Torpey’s writing at or follow her on Twitter (@westerngardener).
Easy Batter Fruit Cobbler
Whether sprinkled over cereal, baked into pies or made into jam, it’s fun to find ways to use berries in the kitchen. This tasty recipe, by food columnist Pam Anderson, first appeared in the July 4, 2005, edition of USA Weekend.
Ingredients
4 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk
2 cups fresh strawberries, raspberries, blueberries or a combination of fruits (or use a 12-ounce package of frozen berries)
1 tablespoon sugar
Directions
Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position; heat oven to 350 degrees.
Put butter in an 8-inch square or 9-inch round pan; set in oven to melt. When butter has melted, remove pan from oven.
Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in small bowl. Add milk; whisk to form a smooth batter.
Pour batter into pan and scatter fruit over batter. Sprinkle with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar.
Bake until batter browns and fruit bubbles, 50 to 60 minutes.
Serve warm or at room temperature with a dollop of whipped cream or a small scoop of vanilla ice cream, if desired. Serves 4.
