Accomplishments

[sinisterdevices]

Rough shelf for storing canned goods in the basement: Built
Circular, three-tier strawberry bed: Built, filled with dirt, filled with (some of the) strawberries
Terraced bed: Fence posts dug in, wall installed, bed just needs dirt and plants. (and the replacement of one fence post, more fool me)
Retaining wall for vegetable beds: Built
Mice: Multiplying, despite ongoing culling efforts :/
Rear bumper: Cracked in four places
Lessons learned: Don't back over the massive lawnmower, you idiot!
(lawnmower: Not even scratched)

Comments

[clarentine]

I'm doing thornless blackberries like that - I was given one plant by a coworker, it created a bunch of babies, I parceled them off to my parents...and now we're in a new place, and I have just one plant left from which to take over the world repopulate the bed. It's well on its way.

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

I thought the trick with raspberries and blackberries wasn't to get them to reproduce, but getting them to *stop*.

Any advice on that front? I'm currently thinking fully enclosed planters.

[clarentine]

With the blackberries, keeping the canes from tip-rooting (either by espaliering or just pruning them back) will do the trick. They are clump growers, so you don't have the issue you have with the raspberries...which really do want to take over the world. I don't have much experience with those. All the growing manuals, however, say to prune out, at ground level, a certain percentage of the older canes every year. Wearing heavy armor, needless to say. >:-) I guess I'll be finding out. My folks are planning to send us home with a care package of more raspberry plants when we go out there this summer.

[clarentine]

...and re enclosed planters, I'm guessing what you'd end up with is shoots headed over the barrier, like you get with bamboo and other plants similarly confined. They either die, or they multiply. I don't think there's a middle ground.

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

Waitwaitwait... Die, if not allowed to propagate?

[clarentine]

It's that thing that irises and daylillies are also subject to - too many of the same plant in a given space and they tend to die out. It's not a disease thing, though that can have some effect, too. The container fills up with roots and stems, and then there's nothing left to grow with. I don't know that raspberries would fall victim to this tendency, but extrapolation on their growth patterns leads me to the speculation, if you like.

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

The books I've seen say that raspberries should be mowed down to the ground at the end of every season, which I would have expected to have a mitigating effect on the root growth. But even if that doesn't do it, sounds like the issue can be controlled by not letting new shoots take root inside the planters. Or will that lack of new direction for growth still cause excessive root expansion?

(I should also mention I'm thinking of open-bottomed planters here, just high-walled enough to keep ground shoots from sneaking up on me. Plenty of room below for root expansion, though)

[clarentine]

Do raspberries fruit on new wood, then? I know that blackberries fruit on second year wood, so taking them down to the ground would eliminate all fruit for a given year...although it does do an excellent job in rejuvenating a planting. Hmm. This website - http://umaine.edu/publications/2066e/ - indicates it depends on what kind of raspberries you have. I know the ones I have are the thicket-growers, so I'll have to thin them. I wouldn't recommend mowing.

[clarentine]

Plenty of room below for root expansion, though - if they grow as I think they do, however, it's the root expansion that will get you. They'll want to go under your barrier.

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

Uh-oh.