Grow Your Own Vegetable GardenA Year in the Berry GardenWelcome to a year in our Berry Garden. We supplement our vegetable garden with a range of berries. Although this is presented as a season by season history over the 2009-2010 period, it will also provide handy links to information and downloadable pdf files that you can use to grow your own berries. Our Berry Garden is divided into 4 berry growing beds. One each for Strawberries and Raspberries and the other two beds that each contain two different types of bramble berries.
Winter 2009
Dealing with the BramblesAt the end of Autumn or early Winter each year, the brambles canes must be lifted and separated, new canes one side, old canes the other. The canes go dormant and lose most if not all their leaves (depends on how cold the weather is). Old and dead canes should be cut off at ground level. The new canes that grew over the last summer will provide the fruit in the next season. These plants are about 5 or 6 years old now. They were relocated a year ago and cut back hard for transplanting so are smaller than normal for a plant of this age. 
Once all tidied, the plants need a good feed. For advanced plants, around 500grms of fertiliser per plant is required. We just use pelletised chicken manure and blood and bone. If any of the old leaves are showing signs of "rust", a fungal infection that looks just like rust, on the underside of the leaves, cut the affected leaves off and burn or throw them in the rubbish. That's it for the brambles in Winter, easy!
Strawberries
Strawberries are one of the few berry plants that are best replaced at short intervals. The quality and quantity of berries diminishes with age and the plants are best replaced after about 3 years or so. 
These plants are being given a soak in water with a sea weed concentrate to minimise transplant shock
New Strawberry plants should be planted out in Autumn to early winter at the latest into a rich, well composted and manured soil.
Create mounds in the soil. Gently tease the roots of the plants out and carefully place them either side of the mound, then build the soil up, burying the roots carefully.
This ensures the plants have good drainage and will help keep the fruit off the soil and minimise fungal attack of the berries.
Raspberries
This year our Raspberries were replaced after the bulk of our canes were lost to extreme summer heat and drought conditions. The donated canes were planted late summer until they could be properly set up in Winter. Despite being disturbed mid season and experiencing an unpleasant summer, these neglected canes still provided us with about 250-500 grams of fruit. I always grow my raspberries in one long strip in the centre of a garden bed. This season, we sacrificed four of our original vegetable garden beds to allow the berries to be relocated. They were just struggling too much over the drought, competing with the roots of invasive Poplar trees from out neighbours property. In winter, cut the old dead canes off at ground level. Cut the remaining older canes off at around 30 cm above ground height. These canes will produce fruit earlier in the season (if you have a later fruiting variety like we do. Feed the bed (depending on the number of canes you have) with about 1-2kg's of pelletised chicken manure and 500 grams of blood and bone. ensure the bed is weed free as this will become difficult in summer.
In late winter/early spring, the existing canes will sucker and provide new shoots that emerge some distance from the parent plant. These grow up to provide the replacement canes for the following year and will provide some fruit in the coming season. Later in spring we'll erect some support wires to help retain the canes in some order. Spring 2009The Brambles
As in the vegetable garden beds, Spring has caused a flush of growth in the berry beds. Different bramble berries flower and fruit at different times. In our temperate climate, I find that Boysenberries and Youngberries flower and fruit first, followed by the Blackberries. Other than a mild side dressing of fertiliser, there is not much work required in Spring.
If you haven't already, make sure the old and new canes are separated from each other on support wires. Old in one direction and new canes (as they grow) in the other.
We gave all of our berries a light liquid feed with the leftover fertiliser tea that we brewed to feed the vegetable garden plants.
The Strawberries
Having replaces all of our Strawberry plants this year, we have a mix of varieties. With the right selection, Strawberry crops can be maintained throughout most of the year.
Again, not a lot of work to be done with the plants at this time of the year. Make sure the weeds are kept at bay! Because you will have to fight an ongoing battle with birds and slugs, I recommend building a removable screen to protect the plants. This was quickly put together from a couple of lengths of "reo" concrete reinforcing steel mesh, although firm wire mesh couldd also be used. Then, we covered ours over with a nylon bird netting and pinned it down. The Raspberries
Depending on the variety, raspberry canes will be doing one of two things. Older canes may still be bearing fruit, or, may be shooting new leaves and fruit spurs, with new canes shooting from soil level.
We have two fruiting periods from our canes. An early small crop from the older canes from last year, after which we prune the canes off, then a second fruiting in Autumn from the new canes that have developed over spring/summer. In this picture, you can see the new shoots emerging from beneath the soil as well as from the cutting that were planted in Winter. The Summer BountyThe Blackberries
We're now close to mid Summer and have seen a pretty good crop of Silvan berries, a small crop of Young berries and a medium crop of Boysenberries already, around 5 kilos in all. The blackberries however, are booming! Because the berries are at their peak in the middle of our hot weather, they have to be protected from the sun, otherwise the berries are scorched and dried on the canes and become useless.
All our berries are housed in bird netting as it is the only way to keep the Blackbirds and Minah birds from stealing all the fruit. The Blackberries in particular, have a "house" that is half bird netting and hafl shade cloth. The netting on the east side allows morning sun and the shade cloth on the west side protects them in the middle of the day and afternoon sun. So far, we have picked around 4 kilos of berries. I picked 2.2 kilos in one morning alone, and nearly anothe kilo had gone to waste dropping to the ground. Best of all, this is a thornless variety which is a pleasure to pick fruit off! The Raspberries
Following the pruning method that is described under the "Spring" section, we have been picking a slow, small, but steady supply of Raspberries. These have come from the relocated old canes when the beds were moved. The newer canes that will fruit in Autumn, are the main canes visible here. The fruiting canes have produced nearly half a kilo which isn't bad considering how light raspberries are in weight AND the canes represent only about 10% of the total canes growing. Autumn 2010With Autumn well and truly with us, the cooler night temperatures are sending the bramble berries into their winter dormancy and we will soon have plenty of tidying and tying of canes to do.All the brambles (Black, Silvan, Young and Boysenberries) have all finished fruiting and our main harvest at the moment is the Raspberry crop. This has proven to be quite a surprise! Even though the canes were relocated, they have provided a bumper crop (certainly for the number of canes)and we have picked around 3 kilos in all. Add this to the summer bounty already frozen from the brambles, I have turned approximately 14 kilos of fruit, mainly, into jams. We'll be tidying the canes of the brambles in a few weeks, so drop back for instructions on how to prune berries soon.
Our Strawberries this year have been a bit "hit and miss". The main problem we have experienced is extreme summer heat. On one occasion, the berries were literally cooked on the plant.
Each year, Strawberry plants "throw out" runners. These extend from the parent plant and will then shoot roots and a new plant will develop. These can be used to extend your strawberry bed, but, if your parent plants have any diseases, these will transfer. This method is only really suitable for healthy plants and should not be used to repeatedly extend your crop for more than 2-3 years.
If the root system of the new runner plant is advanced enough, it can be planted separately after cutting the runner from the parent plant. Make sure you water the plants thoroughly before you dig the plants up and only do it in cooler weather.
Even though we won't reach full production from the berries this year, the crops we managed to get from the relocated plants at the end of last summer were preserved and are keeping us in berries still! Please enter the Password. |
