A Raspberry Patch

Below you will see the evolution of my Raspberry Patch.  The first 4 pictures are from Spring of 2012.  The rest are from this Spring (2013).  Remember, you can always click on the photos to Zoom in.






Clockwise, from top left, I tilled up some grass, raked out the grass and roots, planted Raspberry Starts, and then mulched with Goat Manure/Hay mix, and then Straw in the middle.   I did put Cardboard under the mulch.  This was BEFORE I watched the Back to Eden Film.   I don't necessarily think what I did was  a bad thing, except the tilling was unnecessary.  I could've just planted directly IN the grass and then put Newspaper around all of the plants, and composted and mulched on top.

Here is My Raspberry patch THIS year.  I should've gotten a photo when everything was green.  I did get several handfuls of beautiful Raspberries in the fall.  The tips of the plants bore, as you can see in the photos.

We put those Raspberries in in a hurry, so I didn't really do everything how it should be.  So this year we went out and worked on the patch some more.

My tough kids hauling the railroad ties.

Railroad ties in place with newspaper under to help kill the grass.

Stakes in place to run ropes for supporting raspberries.  I also mildly pruned the berries.

I read that you should prune anything that fruited the year before.  So I did.  Then I read that Raspberries that fruit the first year, will usually fruit on the end.  But if you leave those canes, they will produce the rest of the way the second year.  So unfortunately I won't find out if that's true.  Also  I hope with all the mulch I added, that the Raspberries aren't buried so deep that they can't find their way out.  Updates will follow as I see progress.

A Garden Box Tale

    This is sort of a Show and Tell post so you can see some of the particular areas I'm working on in my yard.  I will try to scatter a few more of this type of post in between so you can see the applications of what I am writing about.

    Last week, I was digging in a garden box that i had also mulched last year,  to see what its looking like underneath.   This box had been the vein of my existence for almost the whole time we’ve lived here.  When we moved in it was full of Golden Raspberries, but it was so overgrown with grass, that in an attempt to dig out all the grass, we slaughtered most of the Raspberries.   

     I dug that box out every year for three years, and replaced the soil, with potting soil, and every year it was overtaken again.  Last year, after watching the Eden Film,  I decided to give it one last try.  I covered up the grass with 4 layers of newspaper, and added the 4 inches of mulch, and then planted several starts from my greenhouse in it.   The plants did not do so well,  (the box is to the far left of the photo) because the soil composition was not good to start with.  There was a strange powdery mineral type substance that was surfacing in a few places on the top of the box.  This was the only picture I could find of it from last year.  But I know the mulching was working its magic on the ground beneath though, because this year, the grass is gone and I found beautiful, dark composted organic material and several worms crawling around. 

This is what it looked like when I went out to clean and prep it for this year.  There is a tiny bit of grass in the corners, but it came right out.

Look at this rich soil!  See the worm in the middle?

I am excited to plant in here again this year.  Plus a few of the Raspberries popped up last year on one end of the box, so I will let them take over again, little by little, and let the box go back to being a raspberry patch.  Only this time, one without weeds!

I added another couple inches of Mulch and then wrapped a short fence around the base, to discourage my Chickens from digging in there and throwing out all the mulch.  We'll see if it worked.  :-)