We forgot that we bought one of these a few years back and just assumed it was totally wild. Looking back at our records we did plant one whip back in 2022 and it's no longer where we put it...so maybe it survived long enough to end up in some animals who then distributed them around the yard.

The pictured grouping is off the back deck.

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[–] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

TIL there are two berries called thimbleberries.

These are the ones indigenous to our area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubus_parviflorus

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 4 months ago*

    I feel like berry naming is so rife with pitfalls lol. This did prompt me to check if the species was listed at the nursery we bought it from but it's not, and the picture is red berries... But I'm pretty sure they are Rubus occidentalis.

    Speaking of Rubus, that's awful close to ribes and one of my favorite confusing naming stories: Gooseberry? What I call a gooseberry is from the ribes family but apparently what I call a ground cherry (Physalis) is also called a gooseberry?

    We also have lots of ground cherry popping up as volunteers, but those are self seeding annuals...

    Edit: and a fucking porcupine killed one of the gooseberries this year 😭

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    You sure that's a thimbleberry? Those are usually red and wider. Looks like black raspberries to me.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    IIRC, those types of berries are an amalgam of fruits, similar to sunflowers, etc, right? They look delicious, and bonus points for sharing with your feral neighbors! 🤩

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    That's one of the coolest berries I've ever seen. Thanks for sharing! 💚

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    Damn, those look delicious. I should get some someday soon if possible. Been years since the last time I had any, and they sound kinda good right now.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (4 children)

    How far from the original planting, could it have spread by rhizomes without leaving out enough to be noticed?

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 4 months ago (3 children)

    About 20 m and unlikely - we have a section with a bunch of different compound berries including a few types of raspberries and loganberries where it was planted. We are constantly fighting the spread from those patches, but they pop up fairly close. There are none in between the planted area and this one.

    Some other varieties have popped up in other areas. We have another kind coming up about 10 m from these ones (forming a triangle with the original patch) and some on the driveway eminating from the garbage storage area (where the chipmunks have a nest) and also just in the front of the house interspersed with the loosestrife.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] [S] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    😅

    I don't feel so lucky when I'm trying to save the tomatoes from the extremely spikey and aggressive raspberries, or when the wildlife strip some of my other fruit plants bare, but no one seems to be eating these and they brought themselves to my back door, so I guess I am 💕

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  • 7 comments in c/nativeplantgardening@mander.xyz view that post
    [–] 4 points 4 months ago* (3 children)

    This doesn't look like a thimbleberry, this looks like a black raspberry patch. I had a million patches of them around my house growing up and made tons of jam and pies from them. Thimbleberries are different, they're larger, softer, red when ripe and never black, grow on larger leafed plants, and grow further north.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    Oh weird, I've never heard of the black caps being called thimbleberries before. I even looked at the wiki articles before I commented to be sure I wasn't making an idiot of myself 😭

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 4 months ago

    Bonus photo lol

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Nice. I have some black raspberries that grow in my backyard and they should be ripe in a few weeks. I'm going to make so many jars of jam. Do you have any plans for these?

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 4 months ago

    No specific plans, I will probably just pop outside and eat them all when I spy the dark ones...

    We have a rather...abundant patch of raspberries in the back which are quite far from maturity. I'm hoping those are abundant enough to make jam.

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