From Booklist
The only thing missing from Bowling's berry book is some freshly whipped cream and fluffy homemade shortcake; otherwise, this is as complete a guide to growing these delectable fruits as a gardener could want. Beginning with the basics of berry gardening, Bowling devotes subsequent chapters to individual fruits and fruit types--strawberries, blueberries, and grapes, as well as brambles (raspberries and blackberries), and the minor crops of currants, gooseberries, elderberries, kiwi, and cranberries. What makes this treatise unique, however, is its advocacy for incorporating berries into the ornamental landscape. For the home gardener unfamiliar with berry-producing plants, Bowling illustrates their versatility, and offers suggestions for using specific fruits in the landscape--as ground covers or hedges, for fall color or vines. At once philosophical and practical, Bowling combines legends and lore with fascinating facts and personal digressions, offering advice for the backyard beginner as well as the production professional that is extensive without being overwhelming. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


From Book News, Inc.
Former professor of horticulture at Pennsylvania State U. and avowed small fruit enthusiast offers a charming, personable, and information- packed book on strawberries, brambles, blueberries, grapes, and an array of minor crops from currants to kiwis. Especially nice is the detailed cultivation and training information, the regional cultivar recommendations, and the author's "digressions" which cover fascinating facts about such matters as mycorrhizae, raisin production, and the effect of sunshine on fruit.Book News, Inc.®, Portland, OR


Book Description
Bowling uses her twenty years of personal experience and professional expertise to illuminate the art and science of growing strawberries, brambles (including raspberries and blackberries), blueberries, grapes, and a host of minor small fruits such as kiwi, currants, and gooseberries. A chapter is devoted to each of the main berry types and includes cultural requirements, botanical traits, the history of the plant in cultivation and in commerce, appropriate cultivars for each region of the United States, and pest and disease considerations. Because berry fruits are all too often ignored for their aesthetic and practical benefits, Bowling includes a chapter on their contributions to the garden landscape.


From the Publisher
Berry fruits have long been used and appreciated in the kitchen, but the aesthetic and practical benefits they bring to the garden landscape are all too often ignored. Whether for the groundcover effect of a strawberry plant, the colorful autumn foliage of a blueberry plant, the climbing trait of a grapevine, or the hedge potential of an elderberry bush, these plants are highly versatile contributors to a range of garden environments. And growing such gems in your own backyard means convenient access to savory fruits for the table or for sale. Full of good humor and infectious enthusiasm, Bowling discusses practical considerations (What soils do the plants require? Which cultivars are best for a given site?) as well as philosophical concerns (What can we learn by growing food crops? What approach should we take with regard to pesticide use?). Berry Grower’s Companion is, above all, a useful book, presenting easily accessible data, important reminders, and up-to-date advice that will be invaluable to beginners and professionals alike.


From the Author
An Interview with Barbara L. Bowling Timber Press: What advice would you offer to incorporate berry plants as ornamentals in the landscape? Barbara Bowling: Get the site right. Be prepared to maintain the plant appropriately. It's more important with food-bearing plants to have some idea what the plant will require prior to planting it. The cost of not knowing the way the plant grows, the maintenance it will require, or the final form it will attain is perhaps higher than with most landscape plants. The risk of not controlling pests can be high, though many of these plants do just fine with little or no pesticide application. Specifically, you may have rotting berries in your landscape -- hardly appealing! Or, if you didn't account for the fact that raspberries sucker from the roots and planted them next to a hostile neighbor, you may have an angry person to deal with.


About the Author
Barbara Bowling (formerly Goulart) names small fruits as one of her greatest passions. She has worked as a professor of horticulture since 1984, having started her career as an assistant professor of pomology at Rutgers University. She has since taught and conducted research at The Pennsylvania State University through 1999. An active researcher and educator of small-fruit growers and enthusiasts, Barbara frequently lectured at the regional and national level and contributed to a variety of industry publications.


Excerpted from The Berry Grower's Companion by Barbara L. Bowling. Copyright © 2000. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
I have always thought that if there truly is a food of the gods, it must be raspberries. Sweet but not too sweet, stimulating but not brash, so full of heavenly aroma. It is also the crop that I most often recommend for people who have only a small bit of land. A 10-foot row of raspberry plants in your backyard gives you enough berries to eat in season and enough to freeze or use to make jam. What a great Christmas present: bright red raspberry jam that tastes like it just came out of the garden, just as winter's darkness is starting to descend. If planted in an appropriate site, these plants also require little in the way of pest control or maintenance. The red raspberry (Rubus idaeus) has been cultivated in Europe since at least the sixteenth century. The species name was most likely selected by the botanist Carolus Linnaeus, after a reference from the Roman scholar Pliny, who wrote about wild raspberries having come from Mount Ida in Greece. Palladius, a Roman writer from the fourth century B.C., named the raspberry in a treatise on garden plants. The earliest written evidence of red raspberry cultivation in North American is in a 1771 list of plants. Commercial raspberry production, and the selection and breeding efforts that typically accompany commercial production, likely did not begin on a large scale until as late as the 1800's, even though the crop was known and planted in a limited manner before then. In 1876 Andrew S. Fuller wrote the Small Fruit Culturist, the first source of practical information for small-fruit producers. At this time in history, numerous publications had long been available on the culture of tree fruits and grapes, but Fuller's book was a milestone for bramble growing. In 1800, slightly less than 12,225 acres of red raspberries were in production in the United States; by 1948, the plants were being cultivated on 370,500 acres, with New York, Michigan, Oregon, Ohio, and Pennsylvania leading the production. The middle of the twentieth century was the heyday of red raspberry cultivation in the! eastern and midwestern United States. After World War II, however, production plummeted, primarily the result of plant diseases and labor shortages. The introduction of aphid-resistant cultivars and micropropagation techniques have led to a new, though modest, rebirth, with production acreage in the United States at about 133,380 acres today.

FROM THE CRITICS

Booknews

Former professor of horticulture at Pennsylvania State U. and avowed small fruit enthusiast offers a charming, personable, and information- packed book on strawberries, brambles, blueberries, grapes, and an array of minor crops from currants to kiwis. Especially nice is the detailed cultivation and training information, the regional cultivar recommendations, and the author's "digressions" which cover fascinating facts about such matters as mycorrhizae, raisin production, and the effect of sunshine on fruit. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Foreword

Legend has it that strawberry plants-which grew abundantly in Chile-were used four hundred and fifty years ago by the indigenous peoples as traps for infiltrating Spanish soldiers. "The Indians would place the plants in small, open spots in the forest, and when the soldiers dropped their weapons to pick the tempting morsels, they were sprung upon and attacked by the natives."

That's just one interesting item the author brings to light in her quest to share her knowledge and expertise with those wanting to know how to grow their own edible fruits-strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, grapes, and other berry crops. Bowling, a former professor of Horticulture at Penn State University who lectures regionally and nationally, considers herself "an active educator of small fruit growers and enthusiasts."

Her own enthusiasm for the subject is apparent throughout the book as she converses like an old friend. For example, she explains that while thorny blackberries taste very good, they aren't grown as much "because the thorns present an obstacle in harvesting." Then she admits, "OK, the thorns are nothing short of brutal."

In the first two chapters, Bowling sets up her general principles for growing berries (site, soil, sunlight, and water are covered) and mentions some disadvantages-such as weeds, insects, diseases-and how to counter them. The next five chapters, each covering a single type of fruit, for example, the Brambles family, which includes raspberries, blackberries and their hybrids, follow the same pattern. A chapter on minor berry crops covers currants, gooseberries, kiwi, cranberry and edible honeysuckle.

Bowling first treats the reader to an historical background of the plant. She then discusses the biology of the plant, listing harvest times and much needed information on the many cultivated varieties that are rated on everything from hardiness and taste to disease-resistance and berry size. How to grow the plant from actual planting through to harvest (including proper plant nutrition, fertilization, and pruning) is covered, as are the diseases and insects specific to the berry plant being discussed-and the means to stop them.

Each chapter closes with a brief section of frequently asked questions such as "Why are my blueberry plant's leaves so yellow (or red) in the early spring?" Answer: "Inefficient water pumping systems."

Bowling concludes with a glossary of terms and sources of nurseries that can be used for purchasing berry plants. (January)