Wild Berries

On Friday, I visited my community garden plot to do some maintenance chores such as weeding, watering, fertilizing and training the tomato vines. After finishing my chores, I decided to try foraging for some wild berries. I've never actually foraged before but I am familiar with various berries as I grow my own cultivated blackberries. The community garden is surrounded on 3 sides by various types of vegetation such as forest, brush, and high grass...all 3 are perfect berry habitat. Also, last year I noticed blackberry/dewberry in the area so I thought I would have a go at it.

I was almost immediately rewarded by finding a large patch of berries. After further inspection, I determined that the berries were black rasberries. You can tell the difference between a rasberry and blackberry by the way the stem appears after you pick it off the vine. With a rasberry, the stem will remain on the vine, leaving a concave depression within the berry. When blackberries are picked, the entire stem is removed, resulting in a berry that is more uniform in shape.


After finding the rasberries, I got very excited and decided to walk around the entire field to see what else I could find. Tucked beside a grassy path amid some overgrown brush, I found what I believe are blueberries. The bushes were in their flowering stage with clusters of several white cup-like flowers. Honeybees were busy polinating the flowers. Also, the leaf shape and size appears to be consistent with pictures of blueberry bushes. I will keep checking on these bushes to see if berries appear and turn blue...hopefully they do.

The pursuit is alive and well...

Don't worry...my produce pursuit is still alive and well. I haven't posted for quite some time for various reasons. The main reason is that my wife and I recently welcomed the arrival of our third son. A lot of my free time (if you want to call it free time...) was spent helping with the new baby and taking care of the other children. I took some time off work so i was able to enjoy everyone's company. I did manage to tend to the gardens the best I could, but I was just not motivated enough to blog.

I am happy to say that I did harvest some veggies...tons of lettuce, a few peas (disappointing this year), and some yellow and zucchini squash. The squash were harvested from the community garden, everything else was in the backyard garden. Also, after losing some tomato plants to a devastating rain and needing to replant, my tomatoes are now doing well.

New Blackberry Bed

A few weeks ago my grandparents gave me two new blackberry plants to put in my backyard garden. The plants were purchased via mail order and I believe they were bare root. My grandfather put them into pots with potting soil and let them grow. He gave them to me about a month later after they started growing leaves and canes. I have some pictures of the new plants in a previous post.

So far, to me blackberries are really easy to grow. They seem to be well adapted to the mid-Atlantic climate and are actually considered to be a native species. Wild blackberries can be found on the sides of country roads, railroad tracks, and edges of fields. I planted a store bought blackberry last year as well, and this year it is thriving. In fact, it has already started to form small berries...which seems early.



So now, I have two more plants and had to find a place to plant them. I decided to build a 2 ft by 6ft raised bed made out of 2x6 lumber and place the bed behind my current raised bed. The spot I placed it in gets good sun, especially in the afternoon. I also built a trellis out of T-posts and galvanized wire since the varieties I received are semi-erect. I filled the bed with garden soil, planted the berries, and covered everything with a good layer of shredded mulch. I fabricated some small cages to place around the small plants to keep the rabbits away. I'm not sure if rabbits eat blackberry canes and leaves, but would rather be safe than sorry. The cages will also keep the dog and kids from trampling the new plants.

It's Growing!!!

It's been a little while since my last post and since then, my fruits and veggies have really taken off. The weather here in the Baltimore region has warmed considerably with most days being in the 70s. Rain has also been fairly consistent but not overwhelming. I have many updates to provide and thought I would divide all of the updates into sections corresponding to the plant type and garden. As you know, I am growing two gardens in two different locations. The first location is in my backyard and the other location is at a community garden located 1 mile away.

Community Garden:
On Friday (the 13th...), my dad and I roto-tilled my community garden plot and planted veggies. We planted various varieties of tomatoes, squash and zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, and watermelon. The ground was pretty hard and compacted so we made several passes with the tiller to loosen the soil. I also incorporated some compost and garden tone fertilizer before planting. Here are some pictures...



Backyard Garden:
In my backyard, I have an established 8ft by 6ft raised bed, some potted herbs, and some blackberry bushes. Earlier in the spring I planted various salad greens such as lettuce and spinach, as well as some radishes. The radishes and spinach are finished, however the lettuce is still in the garden and thriving. I have cut some leaves here and there for sandwiches and salads, but most of it is still in the garden.



In addition to the lettuce, I also have some green beans and edamame (soy beans) growing in the garden. The lettuce and beans were both grown directly from seeds planted in the garden. In the past, I have always been successful with green beans so I have decided to grow them again. They seem to be more tolerant to partial shade conditions then tomatoes, for example.



This year I took a stab at starting herbs from seed indoors. In the past, we have always bought starter plants and then grown them in containers on our front porch. I bought an herb planter kit from Burpee which came with a small planter, soil, and various herb seeds (chives, flat leaf parsley, basil, and oregano). I setup the planter in my dining room window and planted the seeds back in February. Around the same time I also started some seeds in pots in my basement which I planned on transplanting into the garden or into pots when they were ready. To make a long story short, I think my basement was too cold because most of the seeds germinated very slowly and overall were very small and puny. The herb planter in the window faired a little better but the herbs were still pretty small and did not have great color. When the weather warmed up, I moved everything outdoors. Since then, most of the plants have done well, with some being lost to birds and squirrels. In all, I ended up with 1 thyme plant (seeds bought separately), 3 basils, and 3 parsleys. Also, the herbs in the planter are doing very well now, especially after getting a small dose of liquid fertilizer.

Tomato starts and other seedlings...

With the arrival of May and warm weather comes the beginning of the summer growing season here in the Baltimore area. In a few weeks I will begin transplanting some veggie starts into my backyard and community gardens. Jared graciously provided me with some tomato starts (Big Boy I think) about a week ago and I have been keeping them under fluorescent lights and putting a fan on them for an hour a day. I've put them outside as well when the weather has been warm. They are coming along nicely and seem to be getting bigger everyday. Jared gave them to me about a week ago in small peat pots so when I got them home I put them into larger red cups, planting them to just below the leaves so that they could establish deeper roots.

I also attempted starting some herbs from seed, however this venture hasn't worked out as well as I hoped. I started parsley, oregano, thyme, basil, and chives from seed. The chives came up and grew fairly well and I have since transplanted them into my garden. The oregano germinated and fizzled out. The thyme did OK; I was able to transplant one peat pot into a standard size flower pot and now that plant is doing really well. The parsley and basil are doing OK but are small. I am keeping them outside for now and will probably transplant into larger containers soon.

My grandfather gave me two young blackberry plants that were purchased via mail order. They are coming along quite nicely. I will be transplanting them into my backyard in a few weeks to supplement my current blackberry production. I'm sure in a few years I'll be up to my ears in blackberries.

Backyard Garden Update 1

The backyard garden is doing well. Most of the seeds I planted have germinated and the seedlings are well on their way. I have picked a few small radishes here and there and they taste pretty good. I will probably pick the rest of them in about a week. The spinach and lettuce are all doing surprisingly well; I planted them about 6 weeks ago and will probably start cutting off some spinach leaves for salads soon. The sugar snap peas are also doing well, although I would estimate that I only had an 80-85% germination rate which is good but not as good as I wanted. Most of the pea plants are standing at about 18" now.


Next week I will be starting bush green beans: tenderpod and another variety with purple pods (Liz's pick). I'm also trying to find some edamame (soybean) seed to plant as well. More updates to come.

Has anyone seen my blackberry?

With the recent rainfall and warming trend here in Baltimore, my blackberry cane has awakened from its winter dormancy. Actually it has been growing new shoots since early April, however the rate of growth has really took off recently. I have even noticed a new primocane shoot poking through the ground; hopefully more shoots will start coming out of the ground too.

This year, I was given two additional plants (roots purchased via mail order) which I will transplant in a few weeks once they grow a little more. I’ll be sure to report on their progress throughout the summer.

For those of you unfamiliar with cane fruits (blackberries and raspberries), the plants grow canes on a two year or biennial cycle. New canes, called primocanes emerge from the ground in spring and grow to about 8 feet in length, producing lots of leaves and shoots, but no berries. The following season, the old primocanes become known as floricanes, and produce blooms and berries. At the end of the season, the floricanes will die and can be cut back to the ground, leaving the new primocanes that have emerged in the current year. An established plant will continue this phase for decades.

I have been told that blackberries are very easy to grow, and once established, will produce loads of canes and fruit. I personally began my blackberry experiment last year by buying a plant from my local big box store and planting it along the perimeter of my back yard near a fence. I planted the bush and waited for it to start producing fruit. My mistake was that I allowed the plant to produce blooms followed by approximately 2 dozen berries. If I would have pinched the blooms instead, the plant’s energy would have instead been directed to the roots, thus producing more primocanes for this year. Instead, my plant only produced a single primocane (this year’s floricane) which will produce fruit this year. It was a good learning experience to say the least. Another fact I learned, is that birds love to eat blackberries! This year, I will purchase netting to drape over my plant so that hopefully I will be able to reap some of the rewards for myself.

Some additional quick facts on blackberries (and to a lesser extent, raspberries):

• Plants can be purchased as erect plants (strong canes needing little or no support), semi-errect (somewhere in the middle between erect and trailing), or trailing (prolific canes that need to be trellised).
• Plants can be purchased with or without thorns; the varieties with thorns are probably more productive.
• When ripe, the berry will be completely black and pull easily from the vine (requires very little force). In my experience, berries with even a small amount of red will taste a little bitter.
• Picked blackberries will retain their stem, whereas, raspberry stems will stay on the vine when picked.
• Blackberries will grow in various conditions including poor soil and limited sunlight, but like most plants they will grow best in well drained fertile soil with adequate levels of sun.
• Blackberries are high in fiber and contain significant amounts of essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.