Sunday, April 29, 2007

Berry Planting No. 1

After we finished the weed whacking, we started planting berries along the fence. We have been collecting plants at various community plant sales and visits to nurseries for a while, but last weekend we really went crazy at RainTree Nursery south of Olympia. Yesterday we planted 11 berry plants, and we still have 6 more in pots. The ones we planted all need support, so thats why we put them along the fence. The remaining 6 are freestanding, so we'll find another spot for them later.

Here's Cary on the second-to-last hole. He dug big, deep holes through the sod for each plant, and then we filled the holes in with compost & mulch. Hopefully that will make up for the heavy, wet clay soil.
One of the plants in its new home. This is a Sylvan Marionberry, which is a little earlier than a regular Marionberry. Doesn't it look healthy!
We aranged the berries along the fence in order of ripening, from Early (July) to Late (October). The early berries are furthest from the house. In order from NW to SE, we have:
  • Thornless Loganberry
  • Obsidian Blackberry
  • Sylvan Marionberry (2)
  • Marionberry
  • Tayberry (3)
  • Cascade Blackberry
  • Mystery Berry (lost ID tag)
  • Chester Blackberry
It's a lot of berries, but we still need more. For one thing, we don't even have any raspberries yet! We'll get them though, eventually.

Once we had planted all the berries along the fence, we also planted a pair of rhubarb startes that Dave had given us, one on each side of the gate. Then I potted up all our remaining plants into larger pots, so they can continue to grow while we think about where they should be permanently planted. Here is our current collection - there's a fair bit of work remaining, as you can see!

4 comments:

Ericson said...

Well hopefully Moira wont develop my strange distaste of berries. I know Nick's working hard to prevent it but thus far she's pretty sure they are only good for feeding to Kess.

Addie said...

Well, I'm staying hopefull. We'll have a lot of different kinds for her to try. She looooooves her avocados, which is a good sign for a lifetime full of good fruit & berry eatin'.

Anonymous said...

When those get bigger, can I take some cuttings?

-janet

Addie said...

Absolutely!