 Gluisberries produce a tangy fruit that's good for eating fresh, good for culinary uses such as pies and good for processing and jellies and jams and it comes in a ray of different colors including yellow, orange, red, pink, purple and even almost black. They're a deciduous bush which means they drop their leaves in the wintertime. They grow to 3 to 6 feet high and wide and they also have spikes in the spines on them. So be careful when you're harvesting. A good idea is to wear gloves or something. Some of the varieties are very pointy. When planting Gluisberries, it's best if you can get them in a well protected spot that also gets full sun like right up against the fence here. Gluisberries like to grow in a soil that drains well and they also like to have it mulch underneath them to help keep the moisture in. Two to three inches is almost a requirement but we like to go thicker on the mulch. We think it helps. Gluisberries ripen over a two to three week period so it's not something you're going to be able to come out and just harvest all at once. But if you wanted to use Gluisberries for cooking or for processing you're going to want to pick an early variety and just pick the fruit a little bit early in June before it's at peak ripeness. As the Gluisberries get larger and closer to being ripe it's good to come out regularly and just feel them because as they ripen they'll get softer and softer. So like right now I'll feel this one here and I can see that it's very firm which means a good amount of time until that's going to be ripe. And here's a two year old Pickswell Gluisberries with ripe Gluisberries on it. These ones are a lot squishier and softer than the ones in the other plant but they're not ripe just yet. These Gluisberries right here are either ripe or very close to being ripe. You can see how the colors start and they change on them and they're starting to become softer also. If they're at off from ripeness once I go to grab it it should fall off and it didn't. So that's very close but not just at the perfect ripeness for me. These ones right here look like they might be ripe so let me try them. Nope, didn't fall right off. That one right there in the back looks nice and ripe. Yep, see how it just fell off right there. And there's the ripe one that I just knocked off right here and there's a little present in the back too. It's important to pay attention and watch the weather around the time that your Gluisberries are going to be ripe because that can let you know if they're going to ripen quicker or slower. For example, we had a few days of intense sun and a hot spell with high temperatures which let me know that these berries were going to ripen quicker due to that. If we had shady weather and it was cool they would have ripen slower. Once I know that the Gluisberries have a good amount of ripe fruit on it I'll come out every morning and check underneath the plant and see if there's any ripe ones like they're out there that have fallen. This way they're nice and fresh and when you get in the morning they're cool too.