I have 300’ of blackberry and raspberry trellis to get ready by this February when I will receive bare root plants (100 plants). I have thick centipede grass (I think) and would like to know the best way to get the rows ready for planting. I was planning on the rows being 2’ wide and 8’ between the rows. My PH is 5.7 so I would like to raise it some. I have 2" of drainage per hour from the perc test.
I have a tractor which I thought about digging the grass out but that would create a divot where water could collect? I also thought about putting an agricultural weed barrier down to kill the grass but not sure if I have enough time to do it. I also thought about tilling the grass into the soil and then putting the agricultural weed barrier down so the grass doesn’t grow back. I have a lots of oak leaves that I just mulched up last week, can I use this in any way to save money? I thought I could till the leaf mulch into the soil which would raise the dirt up and bring the plant out of the divot?
I also would like to know the best way to raise the PH?
You’re planting on a much larger scale than my 30 or 40 foot row which I cleared of grass with a spade. Like you’re planning, I made the row 2 feet wide, which now I wish I had made wider. It’s just too difficult to mow around the row because the canes (on a t-trellis) reach out so far. It’s also difficult to reach in to pull the weeds and apply mulch. This winter I plan on widening the row to 4 feet and applying a thick layer of wood chips to keep the grass and weeds down.
Either rent a sod cutter to efficiently remove the sod, or get a roll of resin paper from the hardware store and lay it down, preferably with mulch on top. It should kill the grass in time, but you can just leave it in place and plant through it if it’s not done yet.
Even better would be to to in the leaves, then put your weed barrier down, whether paper or plastic. Like is the go-to for raising ph. Your soil test should have recommended rates if you got it through your county or state. Your county cooperative extension service should have more detailed info for your area.
I know this is fairly large scale, but I used cut up cardboard boxes and then a layer of mulched leaves and top dressed with wood mulch for my recent planting beds. Check with local recycling facilities for mulched leaves and wood if you have any available in your area. Many times they offer it for free. I’d also add straw or hay underneath your top mulch layer if you have it available. This method should turn the grass into additional mulch and build a good organic layer throughout. The sooner you do it, the better so the grass has time to break down.
id till the crap out of it to break up the sod then make 12in mounds. add any amendments at this time. some blood and bonemeal would help breakdown any sod in there. add irrigation / row covers then plant into that. the sod pieces still in there will rot from now untill feb. and the plants should be ready to take off come spring. the row covers will kill most weeds that try to come up. the mounds will help with your drainage. i did the same in my rocky clay soil except i used a 4in. layer of woodchips. on a larger scale id think the row covers would be much easier to manage. my 2 cents.
oak leaves are tough to break down. id either compost it 1st. or add as a mulch on both sides of the rows . cover with row covers to hold it in place .let the worms/ fungi/ bacteria do the rest.
Steve you gave excellent advice. The best place to compost is a compost pile. In my postage stamp yard I have no place for one. So I top or mulch compost. I guess it’s a no no to mix uncomposted material with soil. I guess it steals too much nitrogen? Although leaves once shredded rot fast. Here maple leaves are worse than oaks. I grow a couple blackberries that are not really hardy here. They are trailing so with most I can lay down and cover with leaves. I have been doing this for 7 years. Works great to get the canes through winter. Wyeberry, Newberry and tayberry. Years I was slow to cover or didn’t at all, I lost a lot more canes those years. All are covered already this year.
Funny because I throw tons of leaves on them. In the spring I uncover and spread the leaves around. Same with strawberries. By the next fall not one sign of them. Shred repeat!
Looks like a big project! I see the tractor in the picture so I would till the rows. It would be useful to run a subsoiler or shank tiller first in order to break up the hard pan and encourage water infiltration. Apply the compost or leaf mulch and lime and till again. You can compute the amount of lime required to raise the PH based on the amount of square feet you have tilled. Some people bed the rows but I don’t think its required for blackberries
I’m not familiar with your grass but my guess is that its going to come back and will grow through the areas where you cut a hole in the landscape fabric. Some aggressive grass will even grow through the landscape fabric so I would try to get the grass under control before you apply it. Drip irrigation works great when pulled below the plastic and its pretty inexpensive.
Nobody like herbicides (including myself) but a 300 foot row is a lot to maintain with mulch and a hoe unless you love to work hard in the heat! , Once you get the weeds/grass under control its easier to maintain.
yep. i bury stuff in my woodchip mulch all the time. i cut my comfrey. lay it on my woodchip mulch. then throw more chips on to cover them. next spring theyre gone. just as good as a compost pile and you dont have to turn it. i bury my dewberry canes in woodchips for the winter and hang the canes on a trellis come spring. havent lost any canes in 3 yrs.
I immediately thought “sod cutter”… then I read @jcguarneri suggest it. If you have access to wood mulch (from a tree service), I would go the sod cutter route and then as soon as I got the berries planted, I would mulch with a thick layer of wood mulch.
Also, I’d take the sod and stack it upside down, two or three layers high to start some raised beds somewhere else.
Just a comment.
I have had luck with cardboard or newspaper covered with a lot of wood-chips. Better if you can put up a border, too.
After a season the turf is dead and being a “bed” you are not trampling through it. (And it is not an eye-sore.) The earthworms have a go at it and the soils is easy to dig anywhere.
You can turn to landscaping fabric and let Smother-Nature take its course but, I curse myself for every yard of landscaping fabric I have put down.
For big areas you may want to use cardboard especially if you have a large area to cover and a source of free cardboard.
Newspaper is better for smaller beds and must be hosed down to keep it from blowing away… However, Newspaper has a higher nitrogen content than cardboard if you factor in how much bчll-sh*t is in them!
I have a 6’ wide tractor but farm attachments other than a grass cutter, I’m still thinking about what size to buy. I was thinking about buying a 36" or 48" rotary tiller which would be a good width for the blackberry rows without tearing up the grass between the rows but I was thinking about doing strawberries later as well as maybe converting 4 acres into a fruit/citrus farm and that maybe a 6’ tiller would be better? I figure I would try things out with all the plants I have on order and see how thing go for the next year before jumping into farming. Since I only have 500’ of blackberries, raspberries and blueberries I might just buy a subsoiler to rip the soil and Earthquake Versa Tiller for $350 which I could use on my fruit trees as well that I’m planting. The rotary tillers only go around 8" deep vs the Earthquake that can go around 11", would 8" be okay for what I’m doing?
I’m thinking about stripping the grass off with my tractor bucket as in the photo and then till the soil. Than I can strip off some topsoil along my fence line to fill the row back up to a good elevation and apply the lime and till again. Than I have to figure the best mulch to use, next year I will have my leaf/grass piles ready if that will work?
Those are my thoughts on landscaping fabric too. I have an abundance of cardboard boxes so it’s a natural alternative that eventually turns into more compost instead of going to the landfill or having to take it somewhere for recycling. Either way a win for me and the environment when up cycling! Plus that is less plastic manufacturing to make the landscape fabric.
My suggestion considers the work involved. If you lay cardboard and mulch down first, it is my opinion that it will be harder to plant in (I have done this both ways). I use the cardboard/newspaper mulch myself, but not for mass plantings, it’s WAY easier to dig down in plain dirt and then mulch afterward.
Personally, I don’t like landscaping fabric after having used it for 3 or 4 years. It seems to stunt the growth of my plants, granted I don’t use chemical fertilizers, so that may have something to do with it. All I know is that the plants that I mulch with natural materials grow way better than the ones that have been mulched with landscaping fabric, with one exception and that would be greens (lettuce, kale, collards). I haven’t had any issues with using landscaping fabric when growing greens.
I found someone with pine bark for my blueberries but haven’t found any wood chips yet.
If I pile up the oak leaf/grass mulch and wait a year could I use it as mulch around the blackberries and grapes next year or do I need wood chips? I could buy a chipper since I have tons of pecan and oak branches, I don’t think the Pecan Juglone is in the wood or bark but I’ll have to look into that more.
Not sure bout the Earthquake Versa Tiller but I would till the grass into the soil rather than remove it. If you remove it you loose a lot of organic matter.
I expect the ground would till a lot easier and deeper after it was subsoiled. Could probably rent a subsoiler and a tiller for one day and complete the task. Once its tilled the first time it would be easier to maintain with a hand tiller. Too much tillage is bad for the soil but you have to get the grass under control. I used a hand tiller on some 400 foot rows of blackberries in the past but it was exhausting.
Organic growers sometimes tarp the area ahead of time in order to kill the weeds but that works best during hot weather. It would be useful to identify the variety of grass you have and learn more about how to best kill it.
