Expanding The Berry Patch: Some Tricks I Have Learned!
I am on a mission to plant a kazillion raspberries, blackberries and other berry bushes on our property. They are just so darn resilient and delicious not to mention delicious.
We started out with a dozen raspberry canes and about nine blackberry three summers ago. The raspberry have been the easiest. Suckers or "baby canes" pop up all over the place throughout the summer. We just transplant them every time we see them. I think we planted over 100 raspberry suckers in the back field last year. It's still covered in snow and I am really eager to see how they all fared.
Blackberries have been a little more work. They have not produced any suckers so we need to propagate these canes manually. There are numerous ways to do this, all of them quite easy. We've chosen two different methods: Cuttings and Tip Layering. You can do this with a variety of berries including raspberry and blackberry.
From just a few plants you can propagate and expand your patch ... endlessly. One becomes three, three becomes nine and on and on it goes. Berry bushes are often thorny but they are such vigorous, hardy, nutritious and delicious perennial food! No garden should be without these rock stars.
Tip Layering
We gave tip layering a try for the first time last fall. If the canes are nice and long you simply bend the tip of the cane and push it into the soil. You might need to use a fabric staple or something to help pin it down. It's best if there is at least one bud underground. Tamp the soil down well and water thoroughly. These tips won't do a lot of rooting in the winter but when spring arrives they should take root quite quickly.
When you are ready to transplant them you need to snip off a portion of this cane (ideally with at least four buds on it). Carefully dig up the cane and transplant. I've taken a peek at one and they are already taking root so this process really does work quite well!
These canes will be transplanted in the back field as soon as that area of the property has thawed out. I'll let you know how it goes!
Tips bent into soil. We chose to use a loamy mix in makeshift boxes so they would be easier to transplant in the spring. This area is heavy packed clay.
Snipped canes. These will be dug up and transplanted once the field where they belong has thawed out. We've got about 50 of these to transplant.
Cuttings
We were cleaning up the bushes and getting rid of dead wood. We snip the dead wood cuttings up and leave them on the ground beneath the healthy canes as mulch.
In this clean up process we tend to end up with many live cuttings that we can propagate. I've been known to take a cutting and jam it into the soil with no extra effort and after a day or so of root shock, they've just grown. The ground where the new berry patch is situated is still frozen however so this isn't an option.
When you take cuttings it is best to scar the stem a bit, this promotes root growth. It's also a good idea to cut just below a bud and plant that bud under ground. This too will promote root growth. You can use a rooting hormone if you have some.
We potted the cuttings in a loamy soil medium and will leave them outside until we can plant them in the field. I just need to keep the soil moist and the canes shaded for the time being.
This isn't exactly the recommended method. The recommended method would be to plant one cutting per pot and keep in a shaded area until the root is well established, typically you would plant these spring cuttings in the fall and fall cuttings would be planted in the spring.
This is our new berry patch
This part of the property is a bit more shaded than other areas and is the last to have the snow melt. Spring was late this year so we've still got plenty of snow around.
We've grown potatoes, corn and buckwheat back here with disappointing results so now it's time to try the raspberries and blackberries that I know will thrive.
We are experimenting a bit with some of this so I'll have to keep you undated on how it all works out!
Building a greener, more beautiful world one seed at a time.
Homesteading | Gardening | Frugal Living | Preserving Food| From Scratch Cooking|
You can also find me at: walkerland.ca | Facebook
Photo copyright: @walkerland
Thank you for sharing your knowledge! This post has been added to our growing directory of Steemit "how to" posts for the Homesteading/Survival/Foraging/Prepper communities. Your post is helping people learn to survive and thrive now and in the future!
Very cool! I bet they do great for you!
Looking forward to the berry pictures and recipes that surely will come later this summer, right?
;)
Oh my goodness, I am just thrilled at the idea of having a pantry stuffed with berries. Dehydrated, frozen, preserves, rumptoff, pies, cookies, smoothies ... not to mention my all time favourite activity of eating them fresh from the vine! You can count on photos and many posts (lol).
Fresh berries are the best! Beware, if you have child helpers, not many will make it back to the kitchen... Nature's candy, you know! ;)
I am the worst offender of all when it comes to outdoor snacking :)
Bah ha ha! I hate to admit it, but guilty here as well! :D
I knew it! ;)
This is very helpful. My neighbor recently gave me some of his extra raspberry suckers. I need to get more perennial fruit bushes.
I'm glad you found it helpful. Raspberries are so resilient! Good luck transplanting them - I'm sure it will go well. They usually don't produce fruit until the second year but one they get started it's such a wonderful bounty.
Yes almost all of them have already leafed out.... I'm looking forward to it!
Thanks for the additional tips on propagating the berries. We have a kazillion wild black berries but only 6 or 7 wild raspberries. Last Fall I snipped ends of 6 of the raspberry canes and dipped in hormone and planted in a little 6 pack container. Last month they showed signs of growth so I have already transplanted. I am noticing suckers on 3 raspberry plants I purchased last year so Now I know to move those suckers somewhere else. I get excited about the berries too. Last year we had only been in the house a couple of months when berries started coming in and I was not prepared. That is one reason I started the wine as there were so many. We traded some and gave away quite a few too. Hopefully we will both be in berry heaven this year.
This is going to be an exciting summer. I am really looking forward to seeing everyone's gardens grow and learning/sharing tips!
Love the berries. Here in FL we have blackberries all over the property that grow wild everywhere. They were so bad when we first moved in that we had to deal with them like a week and cut them all back because we could not even get to the front of our house. We have been putting in post with wire rows for it to grow around the property line using it as a thorny fence outside our fences. The way we do it is take all the berries that I condsider not good enough for us to eat and take them out where I want the new ones to grow next year and just stomp them into the ground. When I do my rounds with my worm tea backpack sprayer I just stop by and give that area a little spray and the next season you will have them growing everywhere.
I can't even imagine out of control wild blackberries. The thorns are so biting - I can see why it would be undesirable. I love the idea of a bramble hedge around your fence. I would love to do something like that as well. The fact that you just stomp them in the ground really shows how resilient these plants are!!
Thanks for writing. I got a lot of tips to use on my bramble fruit as well from you. I particularly like the tip layering idea.
Glad this post was of interest to you. Tip Layering is a pretty effortless process. I am quite impressed.
Thanks for writing this post! I'm impressed by how many more plants you've created!! I haven't even received my berry plants yet (another month to go) and now I'm already thinking about where we could plant propagated ones in the future, haha. Only issue I foresee is attracting bears...one came to our yard last year to strip the good apple tree out front :-/ Do you have any issues with them?
Our dogs seem to keep the wildlife at bay for the most part but we do have a lot of wildlife around here and I've heard stories of bears in peoples fields. Mischa would certainly alert us if something was on the property at night and I guess we could scare it off with a gun or something ?? (I haven't thought enough about this ...) We have all the stuff for an electric fence (from when we kept pigs) and we could put that up if we do have any trouble. A few zaps from that would likely deter any unwanted visitors from returning. Its very effective ...I've personally tested it multiple times.
I'm guessing you unintentionally personally tested it? ;))) Our garden used to be wired for an electric fence and we got rid of the main box thingy when we moved in. Now that I'm planting berries and we want fruit trees and bees as well, I think we'll have to reestablish it. It's good you have a dog that'll let you know about a bear. Big Guy never let out a peep when a bear stole my bird feeder!! He reserves barking for just people, lol.
I am so lucky. She is so mouthy but so tuned in. A squirrel can't burp without getting her bent out of shape :)
...it was raining. It was the worst lesson ever!