IQF

During the busy summer months, I don’t have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen. I tend to freeze much of my garden bounty that does not get eaten fresh.

In the grocery business, IQF stands for individually quick frozen. Here on the farm, the quick part is basically the home deep freeze, but it works the same way.

The Boysen and Marion berries are ripe. After picking they get a quick rinse and are put onto cookie sheets and set into the freezer. After a few hours the individually frozen berries are transferred to gallon freezer bags and returned to the freezer.

Wikipedia had a very interesting article about where Boysenberries came from,

The exact origins of the boysenberry are unclear but the most definite records trace the plant as it’s known today back to grower Rudolph Boysen, who may have gotten the dewberry/loganberry parent from the farm of a man by the name of John Lubben (who called it a “lubbenberry”), who in turn may have gotten it from Luther Burbank.^[4]

In the late 1920s, George M. Darrow of the USDA began tracking down reports of a large, reddish-purple berry that had been grown on Boysen’s Northern California farm.^[5] Darrow enlisted the help of Walter Knott, a Southern California farmer who was known as a berry expert. Knott had never heard of the new berry, but he agreed to help Darrow in his search.

Darrow and Knott learned that Boysen had abandoned his growing experiments several years earlier and sold his farm. Undaunted by this news, Darrow and Knott headed out to Boysen’s old farm, on which they found several frail vines surviving in a field choked with weeds. They transplanted the vines to Knott’s farm in Buena Park, California, where he nurtured them back to fruit-bearing health. Walter Knott was the first to commercially cultivate the berry in Southern California.^[5] He began selling the berries at his farm stand in 1932 and soon noticed that people kept returning to buy the large, tasty berries. When asked what they were called, Knott said, “Boysenberries,” after their originator.^[6] His family’s small restaurant and pie business eventually grew into Knott’s Berry Farm. As the berry’s popularity grew, Mrs. Knott began making preserves, which ultimately made Knott’s Berry Farm famous.

The Marions are a specialty around here as noted by oregon-berries.com

• A native Oregonian. A cross between Chehalem blackberry and Olallieberry blackberry.
• Medium-sized (5.0g) dark red to black berry with a medium seed and central receptacle.
• Known as the “Cabernet of Blackberries” for its complex, rich earthy flavor.
• Bred at Oregon State University and raised primarily in Oregon.
• Named after Marion County, Oregon
• Oregon produces 28-33 million pounds annually.

The gallon bags of the individual frozen berries make it easy to take out just what is needed for any cooking or baking project all year long. Jams, jellies, juices, sauces and desserts can be made from the frozen berries.