Gardening

[DMH]

Glad the larder is full Tk! Good news!

[tk]

Red I don't know if I built it the right way . I kinda like to wing it when it comes to building stuff. But I made it six feet high and put some cross bars on it 3 feet long on the top bars and 2 feet long on the middle bars . Then I drilled holes threw the bars and posts and ran wire threw them making it easy for me to weave them in as they grow. I did 4 wires per bar and 6 threw the posts. I like my stuff growing high enough to reach and high enough off the ground so you can get to the fruit but the bunnies cant . I did get them planted tonight . Put some grade A cow manure in the bottom of the holes then dirt and toped them with more manure.

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Not to good of pictures it was just about dark but I think you can see the wire . TK

[redman2006]

Nice tk, thanks.

Umm how do I know if it is grade a or b manure?




Seriously, I have no idea what to expect from these bushes. I have read up on the variety, but can't find where it says how long the runners will get or if they will die back and star from the ground up or go from the tips next year.


Our raspberries have gone crazy too, but I at least know how to care for them. Domestic blackberries are new to me.

[nichevo]

TK,
We just planted blackberries this year and got the running ones by accident. What kind of arbor do you grow these on? I was just going to cut some cattle panels like I use for my tomatoes, peas, beans etc. but I am not sure if they would be high enough.

We used 7 ft tall panels and they are not tall enough!

[redman2006]

Wow, Nichevo. Well, back to the drawing board there.

I did not expect much this year, but they grew like gang busters. I need to get them on something over the winter.

[tk]

Grade A has been ran threw 3 processing plants then sun dried in a pasture . . I don't know a lot about the blackberries either except what my neighbor told me and what I seen at his place. They are smooth stemmed and have no thorns . your next years berries come from last years branches from the main stem. They do reseed and fill in at the bottom over time . I don't expect to get berries next year . I put the bars and wires on my arbor so the bush can grow up and widen out at the top to form a canopy. My neighbors arbor is about 5 feet high and only has 1 cross bar and 2 wires and he said it wasn't high enough or wide enough and it gets so thick he's only getting berries on the outside runners that gets sun light. His is about 30 feet long and after 5 years looks like a solid wall. So I figured it wouldn't hurt to widen it out and also give it more support threw the middle. Time will tell if I over or under built it . I just seen the size of his berries and how much it produced and said I want some of them to start so he took 8 ends of runners and stuck them into 8ichh pots of potting soil and in 4 weeks (last Night) cut them off at about 2 feet from the pot. They all had a huge ball of roots . TK

[redman2006]

Thanks for the info. We have ours in a bad spot it looks like. The tag was different from what the plants are behaving. We thought we bought upright plants that need no support and would be compact bushes. Instead, since I did not have anything for them to grow on, I have 5 to 7 foot runners all over the ground in the area and probably not nearly enough room. Good to know about starting. We will start doing that next year.

Our blueberries were a huge disappointment. We lost about half the plants.

[Dode]

When I was a kid, picking wild blackberries, we would use a 4'-5' wire bent on the other end, to pull the interior canes toward us, so we could pick them.

[nichevo]

All my blueberry plants died and 2 of my peach trees died as well. Guess I wasn't meant to have fruit. Luckily we have a wild muscadine grape vine with roots as thick as your arm and our property is covered with wild dew berries (similar to blackberries).

[W.Lynn]

Niche, try apples - if only to attract the elusive "venison fruit" for harvesting!

[tk]

If this past weekends off and on snow showers and cold wind wasn't warning enough . This mornings temperature was 23 degrees. The growing season here is officially over . The few light frosts we have had had not done any damage but today the last of my peppers are dead. I had a nice bunch of green bell peppers and banana peppers half grown that I should of picked yesterday .But I really didn't need them anyways. The wife's flowers and remaining plants took a big hit also. There is no stopping winter so I see no reason to fight the inevitable by covering things up.
We didn't have much color in the leaves this year and when the sun hit them this morning they started falling by the thousands.
Their calling for temperatures back in the 70s by the end of the week so we still have a few days left to enjoy fall. But I feel that we are going to have another early winter this year witch makes for a long one.
TK

[W.Lynn]

It was so cold here this morning, we turned off all the air conditioners. My daughter put on a light hoodie before leaving the house, and she even made the boys wear long pants to school.

Still, if it's going to be a long one, you can buy seeds to sprout so that you don't have one of those days I had last winter, wanted some sprouts, and none of the stores had any! I have all kinds of sprouting seeds now, and mung beans for bean sprouts, and a strainer lid that goes on a mason jar, no fancy plastic stacking trays (tried that once, too much footprint.)

[Dode]

Air conditioner? Wow, you must be south of me. I haven't used AC in many weeks. As a matter of fact, I broke out the clay pot heaters two days ago. It's been in the mid 30's at 5am for the past couple of days. So, my infrared clay pot heaters are great for the bathroom and beside my chair. They keep me cozy without heating the whole house at this time of the year. I'll definitely have the furnace going in November or December. These heaters cost about $6 per month, based on 8 hours of daily usage. Then, in December, I can keep the household temp rather low and have the heater by my chair when needed. The clay pot lies on its side, keeping the heat from touching the floor and directs the heat slightly upward. Probably not a good idea to use them around children, but I'm alone and the cats love them.

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[W.Lynn]

We're just barely north of Austin, and still way too close.

[Zef_66]

We had frost over the weekend. I thought it was only going to be a light frost, and it was Saturday and Sunday morning. But Monday morning it was 24°F when I left for work. So yeah, basically then end of our growing season.

Also should mentioned we started our coal stove this weekend too. It will run from now until mid-April. Last year we burnt about 3.5 tons of coal (it was a cold, long winter) to heat our entire house for the whole winter. Not bad when I can get coal for $150/ton. $525 for 6 months of heating in central PA is quite excellent. The only thing better will be when we move and heat with a wood boiler. It will be basically free.