Gardening

[AvianRaptor]

I actually got a raspberry bush growing out back outta nowhere. Probably a present from a bird or rat... it's growing incredibly well, though I still gotta trim some of the longer shoots before they muffle up their growing neighbors with all the spines.


Got a plan for the second half of the year that involves squaring off areas for proper planting, maybe carrots and strawberries. Also some herbs, but those in separate pots hopefully. This hobby was pretty much a requirement for how boring and barren the backyard has looked for years, I wanna fill it up.

[DingoJay]

Every few years, we have some wild (black) raspberries and/or blackberries growing along the edge of the woods.  They bear well for 2-3 years and then the blight gets them.  When they get bad, I cut them down and burn them.  Often as not they're back within a year or two.  One year, there were so many that I made a couple of nice pies and still had some to share.

[arcticwolf]

in this part of the world black berries is one of the top 3 weeds, every where, yard, road sides ....




 

[heavyhorse]

11 hours ago, arcticwolf said:




in this part of the world black berries is one of the top 3 weeds, every where, yard, road sides ....




 

They take over areas of my pasture as well.   I mow them (no small job) with little result.  Spray them and they come back around the margins.  




As DingoJay above, they die back in a few years by themselves.  So I leave them alone now, beyond setting fire to the dry canes.  I see little fruit from them.  

[arcticwolf]

worse then blackberries is freaking honey suckle, smothers trees bad as kudzu, i been clearing tons of them out by the garden lots vines wrist thick




 

[arcticwolf]

on a side note much smaller garden this year, only 22 tomatoes mostly canning variety, 22 peppers, cayenne, habanero, jalas, seranos, hot bannans




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kale and swiss chard




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potatoes is starting to bloom




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beans are coming in good .. Italian Romano, Rattle Snake, Scarlet Half-Runners




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[threelegs]

17 hours ago, arcticwolf said:




worse then blackberries is freaking honey suckle, smothers trees bad as kudzu, i been clearing tons of them out by the garden lots vines wrist thick




 

Shit, try morning-glory. I had a house once with chainlink fence along both sides of the little (urban) back yard ... every time I mowed the lawn I'd get the string trimmer out and literally mow the fence, top to ground. Talk about a mess, wet vegetable pulp flying everywhere. And then the damn stuff would all be back, seemingly overnight. Beautiful flowers, though, and I thought it was cool how they closed up at night.

[caikgoch]

2 hours ago, threelegs said:




Shit, try morning-glory. I had a house once with chainlink fence along both sides of the little (urban) back yard ... every time I mowed the lawn I'd get the string trimmer out and literally mow the fence, top to ground. Talk about a mess, wet vegetable pulp flying everywhere. And then the damn stuff would all be back, seemingly overnight. Beautiful flowers, though, and I thought it was cool how they closed up at night.

You're getting off light.   Green morning glory vines have the tensile strength of stainless steel.   They get in the corn and play hell with the combine.   They can stop a healthy diesel engine cold and have snapped 2 inch shafts.   The only thing that kills them is paraquat and I really don't want to use it.

[heavyhorse]

Generic round-up (gly-phos).  Good sense and a soft spray (avoid aerosol-ing it) and it's safe enough.  Doesn't get the latent seeds so it's a periodic thing for a while.  But keeps it from climbing the house.  Fairly cheap too, if you mix it and don't get the RTU or the name brand.




Use a plastic sprayer though, it eats up metal except stainless.

[caikgoch]

There's 4 drums of glyphosate a short walk from where I'm sitting and a 180 hp sprayer just outside.   The thing that they don't tell you that some variants of morning glories eat roundup.    Welcome to the next thing after anti-biotic resistant bacteria.




BTW, mix in a little surfactant or bleach and any herbicide will work much better.