Honeyberries, also known as haskap berries, are a type of fruiting honeysuckle that tastes like a cross between a blueberry and a grape. For cold climate gardeners, honeyberries are a dependable source of early spring fruit, ripening about three weeks before strawberries. Haskaps are extremely cold hardy as well, growing and producing fruit where winters hit 40 below.
Honeyberries (Lonicera caerulea) are also known as haskap berries, blue-berried honeysuckle or sweetberry honeysuckle. Though they’ve been grown for hundreds of years in cold climates like eastern Europe, honeyberries are become especially popular in permaculture gardens because of their low maintenance needs. They’re cold hardy, fast-growing and tolerant of poor soil.
Knowing they’d be perfect for our northern climate, I wanted to plant honeyberries for years before I finally found a source for honeyberry plants. Our soil is shallow, clay-filled and wet, and winters are long up here in Vermont (zone 4).
When I finally found honeyberry plants, I was very pregnant, and just a few days shy of delivering my first child. I bought them anyway, and they were planted just a few days before my daughter was born.
She’s always been in the 99th percentile for height, but these vigorous plants still outpaced her. Four years later, they’re around 5 feet tall now, and she can’t quite reach the highest fruits.
Honeyberry plants take begin bearing early, often in their second spring. Crops are light at first, as the plants put most of their energy into growing into vigorous bushes. When they do begin to bear, honeyberries can be quite prolific.
It all starts with small, honeysuckle flowers in the early spring. They look like honeysuckle flowers because that’s what they are. Honeyberries are fruiting honeysuckle bushes, so you get the benefit of beautiful flowers as well as fruit. They’re a favorite of our native bumblebees, and the early blossoms provide early spring nectar sources when they’re desperately needed by pollinators.
A honeyberry plant blooming in early May in Vermont.
Though honeyberry plants bloom about 3 to 4 weeks before our last frost, I’ve never noted frost damage or decreased crops. I assume the blossoms are frost tolerant as an adaptation to may years growing in harsh northern climates. While late frosts will destroy our apple crop some years, honeyberries have been very dependable.
Dependable early fruit is a big deal for us, as someday our goal is to grow all our own fruit for a year-round supply. We successfully root cellar apples already, but by early spring, our palates are craving the first tastes of soft fruit. Strawberries don’t come in until late June or Early July, so honeyberries are a big deal around here.
Though they’re often quite tart, especially when under-ripe. The first fruits of spring are excused for their tartness, and I can understand how they would have been valued in northern climates centuries ago before international shipping.
Tart or not, I can’t keep the little ones off them.
How to Grow Honeyberries
Honeyberries are generally grown from transplants that were propagated from cuttings and then rooted in a pot for 1 to 2 years before planting. While we’ve successfully propagated blueberries and grown elderberries from cuttings, I haven’t been able to get honeyberries to root. All our plants were purchased either from local nurseries or as bare root plants from online nurseries.
I’ve read that honeyberries can also be started from seeds, but I haven’t yet tried growing them that way.
Either way, once you have a few young honeyberry plants, they’re surprisingly easy to grow with minimal care. Here are all the specifics for growing your own haskaps.
Hardiness
While hardiness varies by the variety, honeyberries grow best in zones 2, 3 and 4. They need a cold winter dormancy each year. Some varieties will grow and produce in climates as warm as zone 8, but for the most part, they were bred for cold weather and that’s what they need.
Soil Type
Honeyberries aren’t picky about soil type. They have been known to do well on clay soils where other crops have failed. Our plants are a prime example, growing in about 6 inches of mediocre topsoil above a hardpan layer of dense clay. Under ideal conditions, they’d grow in loam with a pH of about 6.5.
Weeding
While they don’t require particularly deep or fertile soils, they do benefit from a heavy supply of leaf mulch. Honeyberries are shallow-rooted, with the majority of their roots in the top 5-7 inches of soil. Weeding and cultivating the topsoil around their base can damage their roots, and they can be stunted by over competition with weeds.
Keeping roughly 2 inches of leaf mulch around each mature plant will help prevent weeds, and promote a healthy root system.
Pruning
Honeyberry fruit is produced on 1-year-old wood, and the highest yields come from strong, vigorous 1-year-old branches. Honeyberries should be pruned when they are dormant in the winter months, removing any dead branches. For the first 5 to 7 years, allow the plant to grow as much as possible. Mature plants can be between 3 and 6 feet tall depending on the variety, and it takes a while for them to achieve full size.
Once the plants are full size, prune them annually to maximize 1-year-old wood and remove old or damaged branches. Older branches can shade new growth, and prevent good crops. By pruning the bush back, you’re encouraging sunlight penetration to all the productive branches.
Avoid cutting back the tips of branches, as that’s where the most fruit production occurs.
Fertilizing
While the plants are hardy, and vigorous in mediocre soils, they produce best with fertilizer or organic manure. If you’re choosing to apply fertilizer, a balanced 10-10-10 fertilizer is a good choice. Apply in very early spring or fall. Otherwise, go with 2 inches of well-rotted manure per year.
This past spring, we applied fish emulsion fertilizer to honeyberry plants right at bud break. The fruit set was out of this world, and we’re harvesting 4x as many berries this year as ever before. While we’ve always gone with heavy mulch and compost in the past, I think we’ll stick with this fish emulsion routine in the future.
Pollination
The one place where honeyberries are particular is in pollination. To produce fruit, you need at least 2 different honeyberry cultivars. Ideally, you’d have at least 5 bushes planted near each other, with as many different varieties as possible. Here’s a really handy chart that covers honeyberry pollinator compatibility, and tells you which varieties are good pollinators for others.
They’re bee-pollinated, and with their early flowers, they provide much-needed food for native pollinator bees. A favorite of bumblebees, and ours are full of buzzing bumbles in the early spring.
Harvesting Honeyberries
One of their main benefits is the fact that they fruit so early in the spring. They produce around 2 weeks earlier than the first strawberries. They’ll fruit for 2 to 3 weeks a year, and after that, they’re attractive bushes for the remainder of the summer.
Unlike other perennials, honeyberries can be productive just one year after planting. They go on to produce berries for 30 years or more with benign neglect for management.
The berries are easy to pick with a gentle hand. A bit softer than blueberries, but firmer and more durable than raspberries. Pick them by hand into a basket and use them within a few days. They tend to hide under the leaves, meaning that they’re overlooked by birds, but they’re at a perfect angle for small children to harvest.
My 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son harvesting honeyberries from bushes in our permaculture orchard.
Honeyberry Recipes
Honeyberries work well in place of blueberries in most recipes. Keep in mind they’re much softer, and they break down quickly in cooking. If making honeyberry pie, combine them with a firmer fruit (like pears or apples) so that the pie doesn’t become soup in a pan. For muffins or bread, choose a recipe using strawberries because they will bake up more like those soft fruits in cakey baked goods.
Our favorite way to use honeyberries is in a simple jam. Mix equal parts berries and fruit (by volume) and simmer until the jam gels when tested on a plate kept in the freezer. Experienced jam makers will know what this looks like, as the bubbles in the pot change when the jam is almost finished. They’ll take on a glossy sheen and the whole pot will change over within seconds.
Haskap jam can be canned just like any other, by allowing for 1/4 inch headspace and processing in a water bath canner for 10 minutes.
Beyond jam, this year’s harvest is going into simple shortcakes and maybe a honeyberry ice cream. Similar to blueberry ice cream, but these berries are more tart and take a bit more sugar. They also have more flavor in the finished ice cream in my opinion, and honeyberry ice cream is fast becoming one of my favorites.
Homemade Haskap Ice Cream
Other than preserves, it can be hard to find specific honeyberry recipes online, but I dug up a few for you to try:
- Honeyberry Pear Crisp ~ Grit Magazine
- Orange, Honeyberry and White Chocolate Bread ~ Artisans Des Saveurs
- Honeyberry Wine ~ University of Saskatchewan
How are you going to use your honeyberries?
Margie
I purchased 2 honeyberry plants 3 years ago. They did not produce the first year and were getting crowded, so we transplanted to a better site. Last year they didn’t produce either, but I figured that was because they had been transplanted the previous fall. This year they didn’t produce either. They did produce a few blossoms and one or two berries. They have good soil and regular watering. I use compost to fertilize, but have never use any other ferilizer, but maybe some manure. They are both about 3 feet high and 3 feet wide, which the planting instructions say is expected.
Your article says you have to have a different cultivar?
Does that mean I need to get a different variety? Both of my plants are Cinderella Honeyberries. I live in Zone 4.
Ashley Adamant
If they’re both the same cultivar, they won’t set fruit well. Honeyberries need two different cultivars for cross-pollination. They’ll occasionally make fruit without a cross-pollinator, but they won’t really produce until there’s one nearby. We actually grow 6 different types.
Besides a cross-pollinator, the blossoms are really delicate until they’ve set fruit. If you get a very heavy rain or a hail storm at the wrong time, it’ll destroy the crop.
Emily
here is the chart for compatible coss-pollination Haskap cultivators https://research-groups.usask.ca/fruit/documents/haskap/Haskap%20bloom%20ripe%20charts.pdf
Angela
Can someone post a working link to the Chart for compatible cross-pollination Haskap cultivators?
Ashley Adamant
I just checked the link and it works for me? It goes right to a PDF that downloads from a Canadian research university. Maybe you have popups or downloads blocked? or maybe there site was just down when you checked? Either way, it’s working now, here’s the link: https://research-groups.usask.ca/fruit/documents/haskap/Haskap%20bloom%20ripe%20charts.pdf
Erin
We have two varieties of honeyberries that I planted two years ago. They flower beautifully, then start to produce fruit. Before they get to full size, they ripen and shrivel up. The fruits are much smaller than they should be when they do this (about the size of a grain of rice). What are we doing wrong?
Ashley Adamant
That’s a good question and I honestly don’t have the answer, as I’ve never come across that problem. Are they getting enough water during fruit development? I know other types of fruit will abort their developing fruit if they’re water-stressed while they’re forming.
ira kaufman
I’m interested in which varieties there are available for zone 8.Any information will be appreciated.
Ashley Adamant
I wish I could help, but I don’t have any personal experience with honeyberries above a zone 4 climate. I did a bit of research, but I wasn’t able to find anything other than dozens of sources claiming they can grow up to zone 8. Whether or not you’d need to take extra steps to achieve chill hours in the soil I couldn’t say.
Travis T
The honeyberries/haskap that are late bloomers do best in warmer zones. Any of the Yezberry cultivars should work well such as Solo and Maxie. Other cultivars to consider are Blue Sea, Blue Pagoda and Blue Mist among others. Seek out ones of Japanese or Japanese hybrid origin.
Cascadian
Hi Jay, I think onegreenworld.com has zone 8 varieties. That’s where I bought them two years ago.
Erik Johnson
Are you in a cool summer, maritime Zone 8 (Pacific Northwest in the USA, much of Western Europe)? Then ask a supplier from your region. (One Green World and Burnt Ridge are both in the PNW and know fruit.). As others suggested, the Hokkaido (northern Japanese) subspecies should be the most reliable.
If you are talking about the Southeast, I suggest you forget about this fruit. The species is from Siberia! Even Hokkaido is the same climate as the Queen Charlotte islands of British Columbia. That isn’t you. Haskap would fry. You have other spring fruits in the Deep South (zone 8): native dewberries (Rubus trivialis), most mayhaws, evergreen oleasters, and in 8b (the plants are hardy in zone 7b, but the flowers are at the end of fall or over winter and do get zapped by cold snaps), loquats. Texas might get drier and more alkaline, but further east, even in karst areas like the Florida/Marianna Caverns, I saw plenty of native azaleas away from the rocks, implying that the soil is still quite acidic in spite of the underlying limestone. Blueberries will do fine, and the “Southern Highbush” cultivars will often ripen by the end of May (traditional “rabbiteyes” extend this season into summer). Why bother with a plant clearly unsuitable for your borderline subtropical climate when you have many suitable alternatives?
Chris
Hi, we have a place in Jay—any thoughts on the best place to obtain honey berries? Thanks!
Ashley Adamant
Jay Vermont? That’s quite a bit north of us, but we’ve picked them up from EC browns in Thetford and East Hill Nursery in Plainfield VT. They also have quite a few varieties in the Fedco catalog, and we’re ordering a few new ones from there this year too.
Larry
For anyone interested St. Lawrence Nurseries has 4 different cultivars – I think all Russian. They specialize in cold hardy apple trees but do have hasp. They’re located in Potsdam NY (NNY).
Ashley Adamant
Wonderful! I’d heard of them as a great source for hardy mulberry, but last I checked their website was down. I just checked out the catalog and I’m exited =)
Sara
Do you have a good source for mail order? I live in Chicago and I have never seen any locally. I have 2 I got 2 years ago, and they are supposed to pollinate each other but they can’t because they flower at different times. So I have yet to taste a honeyberry. 🙁 So I am in the market to buy a few more bushes but I’d like to get them from a reputable source.
Ashley Adamant
We’ve had great success ordering them from fedco trees. They come bare-root and are pretty big for bare-root plants. They grow fast, and we’ve been very happy with them. They have a number of cultivars too.
Anna
Jungs Seeds & Plants aka jungseed.com out of Randolph, WI, has at least 10 different types of bushes.
gord day
my first yr planting these . so far so good.. northen Ontario canada
Tamby
Also from Northern Ontario. Can you share where you purchased yours from please? Would like to get some for my yard.
Sandy N
I have had 2 bushes for 3 years and get very littke fruit. They are different varieties but seem to blom at different times.. How can I find ones that bloom at the same time? Also the berries are tiney.
Ashley Adamant
Pollination can be an issue, and they’re not all totally cross-compatible. There are a bunch of different pollination charts online, showing different varieties and if they pollinate eachother. Here’s one: http://prairietechpropagation.com/app/uploads/Haskap-Compatibility-Chart-2.pdf
There are others as well, just search haskap pollination chart.
As to the berry size, that may just be a factor of your specific varieties. We have a couple of bushes on the smaller side, but most are pretty big.
Walter Hudson
I didn’t see anything about animals, we have deer on our property pretty much year around they even come up onto our deck and eat certain plants, so I’m wondering if they will eat the honeyberries. We live in northern California and we are going thru a warm spell right now, however, our temps have been down to 19 degrees already this year
Chris Bird
Mule deer will gobble up what they can. We lost all of our new growth to them in northern British Columbia. On apple trees, raspberries, haskap and even horseradish.
Chris Bird
What I have done was to take my prunings and stick them in the soil as they are when the soil thawed enough and out of probably ten cuttings, five sprouted new growth. Had I fenced them in I would think all five would be good but in the fall the deer came in our yard and ate all new growth. I brought three in the house and put them under grow lights and they came back to life so I have three free haskap plants now and will try to do more with this winter’s pruning by bringing them inside and starting them all indoors.
Tia
Great article! I took hardwood cuttings of some of our Aurora and Tundra honeyberrie in late winter this year. I put them in a raised bed that I use to root cuttings. They will remain there until next fall if they root.
Barb Jowett
Can the berries be frozen like blueberries for winter time baking?
Ashley Adamant
Yup, freeze just like blueberries!