Raspberries

Outside our fence, some raspberries were planted a number of years ago. No one tended them and the entire planting area was allowed to grow up. We thought it was a shame, so we began the arduous process of reclaiming that area. Here's what it looked like at first:



You can see some crosses in all of that brush. Those were spread about twenty feet apart and were connected with four long wires. The wires, stretched above the planting bed, were meant to serve as trellising. A trellis is a structure that gives extra support to plants that need help standing straight up on their own. Roses, blackberries and raspberries are thorny shrubs called brambles. Brambles usually need to be grown on a trellis. We decided to keep the trellises but to remove everything else growing in the bed. It was a fairly lengthy process getting everything out of the bed. There were a small number of old raspberries but we couldn't save them. We cut everything back to the ground using pruning shears. Then we went through with pick axes and large mattocks and removed the root mass everything living in the bed. Unbelievably, we found a mulberry tree growing in the middle of the bed. That took a little extra work. With four people working on it, and a decent amount of water breaks, it took us a full day to get most of the bed clean.



We've had some really beautiful work days recently. Clearing the planting area was the easiest portion of the work. We took all of the roots and branches and thorns and grasses that we collected from the bed and dropped them off with the Natural Resource Recovery facility at Solway. You can call 865-215-JUNK(5865) for more information on how to dispose of your "green waste". Once the soil was weed/root/tree-free, we started working on a border for the bed. It is not necessary to border all raspberry beds, but we thought it would be a good defense against weeds and grasses. It's always a good idea to overprotect things that might not get enough attention for one reason or another. These raspberries are going to be outside the fence and outside our normal tending zone, so we wanted a sturdy border. We used shovels to dig a little trench on each side of the bed. The trench was deep and wide enough to fit an Everlast timber. We have a large number of them around the farm being used for this purpose. Everlast was either discontinued or bought out and is now called XPotential. Once the sides of the bed were in place, we could bring in some amendments. Raspberries like well drained soil, so we added some sand.



And then we added some manure.



Before we knew it, we were almost done. We used some shovels to turn the soil so that everything was evenly mixed. We restrung the trellis wires. Now all we need is some raspberries from the nursery. We'll get them in January. Be sure to come and pick some berries this summer!

Nutrient Recycling

Food scraps and yard waste form the second largest portion of what we throw away. Like us, plants "are what they eat". This means soil nutrients. Composting, viewed as nutrient reclamation, conserves a precious resource, the fertility of our soil.

Beardsley farm places a high priority on composting as a way of insuring the highest quality produce for our community and the future fertility of depleted urban soil. We have partnered with a number of local restaurants in this effort.

For well over a year we have collected coffee grounds from The Golden Roast Espresso Cafe on UT campus. Coffee grounds are one of the best things you can put in a compost pile. They have a nearly perfect carbon to nitrogen ratio which creates a favorable environment for the micro organisms which do most of the chemistry of composting.

Recently, La Costa on Market Square have been providing us with vegetable scraps. David (one of La Costa's kitchen staff) is seen here placing a few scraps of vegetable wast into one of their compost containers. The vegetables we receive from La Costa as well as the Tomato Head help us to create a nitrogen rich environment which helps micro-organisms build and multiply their bodies.

Carbon and nitrogen: these are the basics of life, for plants and for us. Carbon is fuel for biological processes, nitrogen is life's building materials. A good balance of these is essential for soil fertility. Since the microbes which do most of the work in decomposition require vastly more carbon than nitrogen it is important to be careful in the management of compost heaps. Too little carbon (which comes mostly from cellulose in plants, the stuff that gives them their structure and strength) and the pile goes "cold". A healthy pile can become surprisingly hot. At 120 degrees our pile enters its most biologically active phase. We have been able to maintain temperatures in excess of 140 degrees for days at a time. During such hot periods, microbes are busily eating and multiplying. As a by product they produce heat, (killing harmful microbes and seeds from yard waste), and most importantly, a great deal of free carbon and nitrogen which builds and fuels plants.


We are interested in teaching the public about the importance of composting. Recently, I visited the ecology club at West High School. The club are considering the possibility of composting at lunch at least one day a week. We talked about the technical and logistical considerations and I hope that they will succeed in starting a program by this spring.

Other educational institutions in the Knoxville area are already composting. The Earth Flag program teaches about recycling in many Knox County public schools. We collect finished compost from one of these-Pond Gap Elementary. Pond Gap does a great job composting well over 250 Lbs of cafeteria waste each week. Enough to fertilize their on site garden and to share with us, and thereby, with the greater community. We would like to extend appreciation to Pond Gap as their compost well established compost piles have provided us with much needed insect life. Insects also do a great deal of work in the compost pile by digesting bulkier materials and transforming them into usable nutrients.

If you are interested in learning more about composting or starting a pile please visit us here at Beardsley Farm.

Peace
Frank