somewhere way up there i posted pics of my mulch… you dont need to buy anything. Just get some arborist woodchips from heavily wooded areas like roadsides or powerline clearing etc… and keep them moist and damp and leave them alone. Every fungi you can imagine is in those pine barks waiting for the day that they can colonize.
I wouldnt say they helped anything grow better though.
As far as things i grow… the things that are in a sand and pine fines mixed… near the crown area are the healthiest and most vigorous… the feeder roots go way beyond the crown and into the walkways and feed heavily under the grasses that get mowed.
I think the choices are either healthy walkways or good commercial fertilizer or both… woodchips help soil health but i dont think there is enough for the demands of canefruits as a whole.
My local ALDI has Ebony King blackberry plants this week… i cant find any picture or note of them online so YMMV on that. I rescued 2 more…
I am trialing them along a fence and want to see if they will do well without my help. So far so good and they are a good choice for a ‘food forest’ or something along that line where they dont need as much attention as the others do.
Ah so the ones i got extra from the home depot packs are super thorny and not ebony king… just googled them. I feel like all those packets are mislabeled now with the wineberry
that name sounds familiar. what zone are they hardy to? i think they are a variety i saw for sale in Canadian nurseries awhile back. bred in Nova Scotia i believe.
I like it myself… but i like the old timey flavor of sweet and tart. If you just like sweet like Ponca you probably wont like it.
This is an old blurb i found about it that someone else found…
'“Place of origin and originator unknown. Introd. about 1940 by Krieger’s Wholesale Nursery, Bridgman, Mich. Parentage unknown. Fruit: large as Eldorado, which it resembles; skin black, glossy; flavor sweet, tangy, good; ripens early. Bush: upright; hardy; resistant to orange rust”
That fits just about everything that i can talk about also… large fruit that are sweet and tangy, ripens early, its erect…very hardy and has no issues that i can see. It is however thorny…which the trend is to get away from that in our time… so i doubt this will be around much longer to purchase…and seems to be playing out in the box stores less each year.
I modified @TNHunter 's idea a few (alot) posts back for my newly adopted trailing blackberries. It may not look like much, but I burned a few calories today getting it setup. Looking forward to watching the berries grow.
I am growing Newberry, Kotata, Siskiyou, and Victory. I purchased them from @krismoriah. After reading this thread I couldn’t help but purchase some. I have a Kiowa as well that I have had for two years. It has grown really well in South Ga. I have seen your posts as well @PcChip you have some amazing plants and your yard is much more manicured than mine.
do any of you follow in your own plantings? especially the parts about cutting back the canes back to soil on first planting and the shallow and root separation when planting?
i planted them like i would any other plant in a container. i also havent cut the cane to the ground that each came with.
This is my 5th year growing raspberries in containers. They should produce fruit for at least 10 years. As far as I know there is no difference in the lifetime of the plant when planted in a container versus the ground. The only difference I’m aware of is raspberries planted in the ground will grow larger and produce more fruit.
I have been growing a lot of regular raspberries and blackberries, but I got two new plants this year, a Rubus occidentalis ‚Black Jewel‘ and a hybrid ‚Glen Coe‘. Any advice on growing these? I heard while they are sold as black raspberries, they behave more like blackberries, and are also pruned similiarly to them?
Will they also propagate by layering similar to blackberries, or more through suckers like raspberries?
Jewel is a black raspberry, but Glencoe is a purple raspberry. I would recommend applying fertilizer and top dress with compost early spring. In the summer prune new growth to 30in -36in and reapply fertilizer. Late winter or early spring cut the canes which fruited last season to soil level and prune the side branches (laterals) on the new canes to pencil diameter, approx.12in long, and repeat the cycle over again. Canes which fruited last year will look dark brown and the outer layers may be peeling away. The newly overwintered canes will be somewhere between dark red and purple in color.
Yes, purple and black raspberries are pruned similarly to blackberries. You can either air layer or tip root them to propagate. They send new canes out from the center of the plant and do not sucker like red and yellow raspberries. I have propagated both Jewel and Bristol plants successfully by tip rooting.
