It was a pretty exciting week here as we finally got to plant our haskap section of the orchard! Our 112 little baby haskap plants actually arrived in a small cardboard box back on June 15 – but they had come straight from the nursery and had to be hardened off first. (This is a process of gradually exposing them to the outside elements of wind and sun over a period of about 7-10 days.)

However, as it happened, Alberta entered a recorded breaking heatwave just about the time these little haskaps were hardened off and ready to get out to the orchard. I decided not to plant them yet, and just keep them protected (and shaded) around the house until the heatwave passed. This wasn’t ideal, but I’m sure it was better than setting them out to bake in the sun! It wasn’t until July 5 (20 days after they arrived) that the weather cooled off enough that I felt it was ok to plant them. It was a bit overcast with a high of only about 20° – so that was perfect for planting! The rest of the week was forecast to be between 25° and 30° (not great for little plants) but I didn’t want to keep them in their little plastic bags any longer and so we planted!

The first thing I did was to mow a strip through our covercrop. Our covercrop (of barley, canola, radish, turnip, peas, clover, phacelia and several other varieties) was growing really well in that area of the orchard and was super thick! But I needed to be able to run a string line to keep the rows straight, so a couple passes with the mower cleared a nice path! With that done, I strung my line and tape measurer and my son Ben & I planted the little haskap plugs in rows of 16 plants spaced 5 ft apart. As we planted, my daughter Allison watered them in good!

There were 16 plants of each of the seven varieties I had ordered – Boreal Blizzard, Boreal Beast, Boreal Beauty, Aurora, Honeybee, Indigo Gem, and Indigo Treat. (I had also ordered Borealis and Tundra, but they were unavailable at that time – I’ll see if I can get them later this fall.) Because of the extended time before I could plant them, a handful of the plants ended up not looking well and I think I’ll lose some of them. The record-breaking heatwave is over, but the hot weather continues and some plants have had some wilty moments.

I’ve had to water them daily so far – I’m hoping to get some cooler cloudy days soon and can start reducing the amount of water they need. I also have a pile of mulch I need to apply – but so far I haven’t had a chance to do that! I think that’ll be Monday’s job!

If I could do it again, I think I would order for fall delivery and planting – mid-summer is just too hard on the plants. But I think the vast majority of plants will come through and we’ll be eating haskap berries before we know it!

If you’ve known me for any length of time, you know that I’m not exaggerating when I say I LOVE fruit! Plums, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, apricots…. You name it – I love it! But the one fruit that is probably my all-time favourite of them all is haskap.

What is haskap, you say? (Actually, I get that question a lot! I even wrote an article about haskaps back in 2007…)

Haskap Berries

Haskaps are probably the most delicious berries you’ve ever eaten. Some people have described the taste as a cross between raspberries and blueberries. They are sweet and packed with zingy flavour! Both the seeds and the skin are soft, so you never even notice them – they practically dissolve in your mouth.

Haskaps are some of the earliest producing fruits you can grow – with the earliest varieties ready to pick by the end of June! The later varieties extend all the way to the end of August, so with a few different cultivars, you can be eating haskaps all summer long!

Haskap Bushes

The bushes themselves grow to be around 6 ft wide and tall (depending on your cultivar), and mature plants can produce around 7 kg of berries per plant each year. They are extremely hardy. They can survive -47° winters and their flowers in spring can survive -7° without harm! (Perfect for zone 3 growers!)

Although haskap berries actually grow in the wild in Canada, the tastier, “tame” cultivars have only been around for the last couple decades. I bought my first haskap seedlings 15 years ago when the University of Saskatchewan had just release their very first cultivars. At that time, those haskap berries were still very small and very tart.

Today, there are all kinds of tasty varieties. (Personally, I plan to plant 12 varieties in my orchard this fall.) The berries come in quite an assortment of shapes and sizes – but tend to be oblong and tubular in general. Even the flavour varies quite a bit from cultivar to cultivar. The larger berries grow to be about an inch long and weight a couple grams each.

So what can you do with the berries? Pretty much anything you might do with a blueberry or saskatoon! They are delicious fresh. Our kids love them on ice-cream and in smoothies. (They freeze great too!) Haskap jam is AMAZING and many people enjoy a nice glass of haskap wine! My personal favourite is haskap pie! (The ham ‘n’ haskap pizza we made wasn’t that bad either!)

Needless to say, I’m super excited to have an orchard filled with haskap! I’m sure I’ll be talking about them some more in the future!

But if you’d like a bit more information about haskap – check out the Fruit Program at the University of Saskatchewan. Or leave your comments below and I’d be happy to answer your questions!