Post by Polly on Dec 21, 2011 19:42:00 GMT -6
Wild Black Raspberry
Often called Black Caps. These are not to be confused with wild blackberrys. Wild black raspberrys are hollow inside when pulled from the stem; blackberries are not. They tend to grow along the edges of timber, in fencerows, and in uncultivated and let go pasture areas.
They can spread by various measures - birds eating the fruit and depositing seeds through their feces, the plants sending out root suckers, and tip rooting. If you wish to propagate them, you can do so by tip rooting or by rooting cuttings.
Raspberries like a large amount of humus in the soil - I was unsuccessful growing commercial plants in my heavy clay soil, but I now have a bird planted patch of them growing in the wood chip mulch under my clothesline, another patch where I had an old old chicken pen (lots of humus from bedding and the bales of straw that were placed around the pen for winter insualtion), and yet another patch that developed in a perennial bed that was heavily mulched with wood chips.
The raspberry canes where I pick along the edges of the woods and the ones under my clothesline are mostly in the 2-3' tall range and have canes the diameter of a pencil; the ones that appeared in my flower bed and former chicken pen are easily 6-7' tall, with canes as thick as my thumbs. The latter ones have larger berries that are just as tasty as the smaller ones, so I have encouraged them to grow where they will.
Raspberries fruit on 2nd year wood. I cut the old canes down shortly after fruiting to encourage growth in the current year's canes, and to encourage root suckering to enlarge my beds.
Rapberries are high in Vitamin C, high in fiber, and loaded with antioxidants. Besides the handfuls that I eat fresh while picking them, I like to water bath can them by sprinkling the tiniest bit of sugar over them and heating them before putting them in the jars and canning for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. These are great for pies and cobblers, and for adding to your morning bowl of oatmeal or other cereal. I've also made fruit leather from them - sieving them to remove the seeds is a pain and you usually end up with more juice than pulp, so I generally just mash them, let a bit of the liquid drain off, and spread on the fruit leather sheets. We can the juice or add it to home canned apple juice from the pantry; we also make wine from it, and, of course, jelly.
Generally, when people talk about using raspberry leaves for tea, they are talking about using red raspberry leaves. I can find no data confirming or denying that black raspberry leaves have the same use, but they do make a nice tasting addition to herbal tea mixes. Raspberry leaf tea is said to be good for preparing the body for labor and delivery, for regulating menses, and for increasing the flow of breast milk. It should not be used by those who are trying to get pregnant, or in early pregnancy.
Several of the Plains Indian tribes made a tea of the bark of black raspberry roots to be taken for dysentary.