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!