Author Topic: Minnesota Rare Fruit Growers  (Read 1098 times)

CherimoyaDude

  • Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 188
    • San Francisco / Santa Barbara
    • View Profile
Minnesota Rare Fruit Growers
« on: April 03, 2022, 06:32:41 PM »
Does anyone know if there is anything like CRFG in Minnesota or know of any good gardening / farming groups? I might end up having to move there in the next few years and would like to continue my hobby. This would be for growing outside, not space station / heated greenhouse tropicals.

Francis_Eric

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 616
    • 40 miles west of Chicago Aurora IL ZONE 5
    • View Profile
    • https://myspace.com/undisclosedforthetime/
Re: Minnesota Rare Fruit Growers
« Reply #1 on: April 15, 2022, 04:17:36 AM »
Hi I had a Post wrote, but not sure where anyways here is one site Mid west fruit growers
I have more . Kinda far but I will look.

http://www.midfex.org/

If your into grapes you may want to grow  Elmer Swenson grapes
Here is a list of different fruits that grow up that way.
(I also know pawpaws can grow up that far you may want early ripening like Jerry Lehman's VE -21
(I guessed it stood for Very Early when I bought seeds off Him  I guess I was wrong VE is Valley East)

(you maybe able to grow Cornelian cherries as well which taste like cherry
 ( cornelian cherry or edible dog wood as not a actual cherry) 

https://mnhardy.umn.edu/varieties/fruit
« Last Edit: April 15, 2022, 04:35:06 AM by Francis_Eric »

bussone

  • Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 185
    • Philadelphia, PA (7a)
    • View Profile
Re: Minnesota Rare Fruit Growers
« Reply #2 on: November 14, 2022, 12:14:08 PM »
Does anyone know if there is anything like CRFG in Minnesota or know of any good gardening / farming groups? I might end up having to move there in the next few years and would like to continue my hobby. This would be for growing outside, not space station / heated greenhouse tropicals.

Consider thimbleberries (rubus parviflorus). Likes cool moist shade. Happy around Lake Superior and northern Lake Michigan. Hates drought, does not like fruiting in heat. The Great Lakes variety is white-flowering. There is also a pink-flowering, but this is from the west coast. It is, however, more heat-tolerant.

Pink: https://oikostreecrops.com/products/pink-thimbleberry-seeds/?search=thimbleberry
White: https://hartmannsplantcompany.com/retail/product/thimbleberry-raspberry/

I've found the plants are almost obnoxiously vigorous (read: can be weedy). Not thorny. In Philadelphia, the pinks definitely set fruit and I think some of my whites have. The birds usually beat me to the berries. Not as fruitful as raspberries, at least so far. Dry-ish fruit, looks and tastes like a raspberry. Detaches in a thimble shape. Makes for a really good (and expensive) jam.