Top Secret Garden plot

[User4960]

Rhoda_Bruce, you never ate a Raspberry? But have had blackberries?

Raspberries have a milder and a sweeter flavor. Less of that sharpness. I like both. Actually blindfolded, hmm, I think I'd usually be able to tell the difference. There is a soft firmness to them. If you ever go to town to shop where there is a Safeway or major store like that they may usually have raspberries if they are in season somewhere.

So Lucky, I just discovered this forum a couple days ago. It's a good one!

Yes, there are those other secret gardens up here that are illegal. I certainly do not grow that stuff! My garden is visible to many campers and friends. It is even visible on google map. I am talking about, everybody who loves Blackberries, up here, it is first come first gets them.

I do know where there is a patch of unusual Blackberries that make larger flowers and bigger berries. I'd kind of like to stick in some Raspberries unbeknowenst to anyone, and go berrying and come back with raspberries.

 

[FarmerChick]

if you 'hide' a garden one thing for sure, some critter is going to find it. between the deer and every varmint something planted out in my woods doesn't stand a chance mostly

 

[Denim Deb]

Not sure, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that you shouldn't plant blackberries and raspberries together.

I know I went camping w/a friend several years ago. And, when we drove in, I noticed all these plants that no one else seemed to be paying any attention to. So, I went and took a good look at them. They were raspberries! We had raspberries on everything we could think of-including smores! And, if it wasn't for the fact that I knew I wouldn't have time to do anything once I went home, I would have picked a ton of them for making jam.

 

[User4960]

I'll google that up right away about whether or not black and rasp berries can be planted together. My first guess about it might be that the more wild blackberries tolerate diseases better and carry rusts and viruses tolerating them that would spread to the more domesticated raspberries that would not tolerate the diseases. Just guessing though. These wild blackberries do tend to get ugly looking by late fall with dark leaves, and then some of the leaves hang on through winter. Right now I'm seeing some new leaves starting on them.

Then there is the true native forest blackberry or dewberry that grows here. I have never seen a berry on any of them. No, not a one. Here's the way I am! I transplanted one of them that seems to be a youngster maybe a year old, into my vegetable garden. These make a lighter colored cane coated with that waxy cutin, and are extremely thorny with the kind of thorns that if you touch even lightly, an obnoxious tip microscopically breaks off in your skin. These are the bad boys as far as thorniness go. Anyhow, I have indeed planted it in the north bed of my garden near the center post and will be training it up the post, 2 stems. One stem I will treat as primocane, the other as 2 year to find out what it takes to make it produce.

Right near that wild berry I have my thornless blackberry still in the pot that I will plant, maybe today or tomorrow. I intend to cross them. I plan on making that north row mostly berries, and to obtain some raspberries, one each of several kinds, and a boysenberry. I want to do some crosses.

Meantime, I'll look up about why they should not be planted together...

 

[Denim Deb]

I did after I posted that. They can be planted together-if you really manage them well. The blackberries tend to be a larger plant and can overcrowd and overshadow the raspberries. Plus, I think there's some kind of disease that the blackberry can get that can spread to the raspberries and wipe them out.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

I'm serious......never had them in 46 years. But we have all the blackberries we can pick, if we not run off property or if the property owners don't go wild spraying Round Up, just so you don't get something that 'belongs' to them.
I'd probably have to find them frozen, cuz I don't see them fresh in the produce section at the stores and not sure where else to find fresher produce.
Have had a problem these past few years having a reliable source for even blackberries because I started going in the pasture next door, but I think it musta offended someone and the next year they were all dead and cut. Even the ones that grew on the fence. Same thing happened several years earlier when an old asian woman and I would go collect wild onions in a field. Didn't hurt anyone, but they sure were cut down and the field burned.
So DH decided to order some vines for our own use and we have them in our yard, so we have a more guaranteed source that no one can touch......unless we let them. They didn't work out like they were supposed to. Supposed to not need support, but they started trailing all over the place, so I tackled one row a few months ago and put them up on a fence with clothes line wire and DH did the other row a few days ago. Supposed to be illegal to start our own......I guess I have to be careful the blackberry police don't come get us and all, but really I've now been transplanting some wild plants on our geese fence and one on a little piece of fence I put up near our garden, because it was coming up wild there and I thought I'd cash in on our free gift.
Actually in this month's issue of MotherEarthNews, there is an article about growing perineals to increase produce and some of that stuff doesn't even look like food that the average person would recognize. I think thats kinda like growing a hidden garden. And less work......sounds good to me.

 

[Mr.Andersson]

Wow, rhonda, what mean neighbirs. If you were my neighbor, you could weed, all you wanted to. I've got more than enough. So much for allowing others to Gleen.
I've found that my secret gardens of berries do much better, on the north hedgerow of a field, south side of the hedge.
Through experience, i've leaned that my reds, produce better, if seperated by 50_100ft from the blacks.
At work 2 weeks ago, I scored some Black Rasberries! I found them growing at the edge of customers property, next to swampland. New devopment, so the scrubland, had not yet been cleared. I knew what they were immediately. Black stalk, with a purple hue, I haven't seen this variety in ten years, so out came the shovel, and home they came!

 

[Denim Deb]

I have some blacks that came up on their own in my yard. Don't know enough about them to know what type. And, I also had red ones come up. The reds taste better than the black, IMO.

Right now, they're not in a good spot. I'm hoping in the fall to be able to move them. They're between my hay shelter and green house (they're back to back) and hubby's tool shed. So, they're kind of hard to get to. :/

Mr. Anderson, if you want more LMK. You can come over and dig some up.

 

[Dawn419]

Nice score on the rescued Black Raspberries, Mr. A!

Marshall,

We have native Dewberries, too. I've seen fruit on them but the critters usually get to them before I do. I transplanted two of them last year and hope they'll produce more fruit with a bit of cultivation. Time will tell...

 

[~gd]

I'll google that up right away about whether or not black and rasp berries can be planted together. My first guess about it might be that the more wild blackberries tolerate diseases better and carry rusts and viruses tolerating them that would spread to the more domesticated raspberries that would not tolerate the diseases. Just guessing though. These wild blackberries do tend to get ugly looking by late fall with dark leaves, and then some of the leaves hang on through winter. Right now I'm seeing some new leaves starting on them.

Then there is the true native forest blackberry or dewberry that grows here. I have never seen a berry on any of them. No, not a one. Here's the way I am! I transplanted one of them that seems to be a youngster maybe a year old, into my vegetable garden. These make a lighter colored cane coated with that waxy cutin, and are extremely thorny with the kind of thorns that if you touch even lightly, an obnoxious tip microscopically breaks off in your skin. These are the bad boys as far as thorniness go. Anyhow, I have indeed planted it in the north bed of my garden near the center post and will be training it up the post, 2 stems. One stem I will treat as primocane, the other as 2 year to find out what it takes to make it produce.

Right near that wild berry I have my thornless blackberry still in the pot that I will plant, maybe today or tomorrow. I intend to cross them. I plan on making that north row mostly berries, and to obtain some raspberries, one each of several kinds, and a boysenberry. I want to do some crosses.

Meantime, I'll look up about why they should not be planted together...

Because if they bloom at the same time They will cross breed. Since the fruit is there to care for the seed you can get all kind of odd berries and flavors!~gd