Tag: blackberries

Garden Update – December

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On December 6, 2020

In Gardening

December is here already! It is definitely starting to feel like winter and the weather has been changing a lot this past month. We have had lots of rain and on clear days the temperature routinely gets down to freezing at night. Despite this, I am still working in the garden on the few sunny days we have. Here is what has been going on in the garden this month:

Getting the Garden Ready for Winter

The main thing I have been working on is putting the garden “to bed” for the winter. I covered the garden with a thick layer of leaves from our trees and covered it with a tarp. The tarp helps to hold the leaves in place so they do not blow away. Also, it prevents soil erosion and leeching of nutrients from the heavy rains. The worms will be very happy and hopefully by spring most of the leaves will start to break down into the soil.

Cover the garden with leaves
We cover our garden with a layer of leaves. They will break down over the winter and add organic matter to the soil.
Garden covered with leaves and a tarp
After the leaves are on we covered our garden area with a tarp to hold them in place.
Worms in the leaves
Look at all these worms! They will help to break down the leaves over time.

Garlic

I planted our garlic at the beginning of October. We had some very nice weather and it grew about four inches tall by November. Since the weather is colder now it has slowed its growth. I mulched around the garlic shoots with leaves. Since I covered much of my garden with a tarp over the winter, I put some overturned buckets and a crate over my garlic so the tarp (and heavy rainwater) would not be sitting directly on the plants. I will uncover them in the early spring when temperature warm and growth begins.

Related Post: How to Plant Garlic in the Fall

Garlic growing in December
Since I covered our garden with a tarp over the winter, an overturned crate or bucket will prevent the tarp (and heavy rainwater) from sitting directly on the plants.

Peas

My peas are still doing great! They are about 12-18 tall now and very healthy. Yesterday we had temperatures in the high 20’s and a hard frost. The peas looked fine as soon as the frost melted later in the day. Although peas should be hardy down to about 20 degrees, I will cover them with a blanket if the temperatures get down to the mid-20’s or below because I do not want to chance any damage. I am looking forward to earlier peas in the spring!

Related post: How to Overwinter Peas

Overwinter peas in garden
Our peas are doing great despite some heavy frosts. I am already looking forward to our peas next spring!

Carrots

Our carrots are one of the few crops still in the ground. We have just a few carrots left this season, which is a real treat. Storing them in the ground has kept them crisp and crunchy. It is nice knowing that I can go outside and dig some fresh carrots whenever I need them!

Blackberries

My blackberries have gone dormant for the winter and have lost some of their leaves. We had some strong winds that blew the canes off of their trellis so I had to go outside and carefully wrap the canes back around the wires.

Several weeks ago I decided to start a few new blackberry plants, so I allowed them to root both in a pot and in a new area in my planting bed. You can read more about propagating blackberries here.

Propagate blackberries
It is very easy to propagate blackberries! Here I started one in a pot for a friend.

Raspberries

Our raspberries have stopped growing for the year and they have lost most of their leaves. I planted them a year and a half ago as an experiment and they took off and did much better than expected! I do not have a permanent trellis for them yet (one of my projects for next year!) so I put them in tomato cages to keep the canes off of the ground. That seems to do the job, although they do not look too pretty. I pruned away some of the excess shoots as I was putting them in the tomato cages so the plants are not overcrowded. The raspberries look very healthy and I am looking forward to a large harvest next summer!

Raspberry canes in tomato cages
Tomato cages are helping to keep my raspberry canes off of the ground this winter. I plan to make a permanent trellis next year.

Final Thoughts

It has been a slower month around here and nice to finish up some last gardening chores for the year. Have you been doing anything in your garden this December? Let me know in the comments below!

As always, Happy Gardening!

Blackberry vines

The Easiest Way to Propagate Blackberries

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On November 8, 2020

In Gardening

Blackberries are a wonderful plant to include in your garden! They produce large harvests of delicious berries and are very easy to care for. But after many years, productivity can start to decline and you may want to start over with a new plant. Luckily it is very easy to propagate blackberries and you will soon have plenty of healthy starts to plant in your garden or to give away to friends!

Blackberry vines
Blackberries are easy to grow and produce large harvests year after year!

When to Propagate Blackberries

Late summer to early fall is generally the best time to propagate blackberries. By this time your plants are done producing berries for the year and new stems (primocanes) are actively growing. Also, your new plants will be able to become established before cold winter weather arrives.

How to Propagate Blackberries

While there are a few different ways to propagate blackberries, I think the absolute easiest way to start new blackberry plants is through a process called tip layering. Tip layering is where the end of a healthy vine is covered with soil so it forms roots. We will now go through this process step-by-step:

Step 1: Select a Healthy Primocane

A primocane is a blackberry stem that is in its first year of growth. Choose a healthy primocane that is at about the diameter of a pencil to ensure vigorous, healthy plants. If you have your vines on wires or a trellis, make sure the primocane is long enough to reach the ground.

Blackberry primocane for propagation
Choose primocanes that are about the same diameter as a pencil.

Step 2: Plant the Tip of the Primocane

Next choose where you want to plant your blackberry start. If you want to plant it in a new location (or start one for a friend) the easiest way is to start the blackberry in a large pot filled with planting soil or potting mix. I usually use a 1-gallon pot so the roots have plenty of room to get established.

Dig a small hole in the soil and plant the tip of the primocane about 2-3 inches deep. Carefully remove any large leaves on the side of the stem that would be under the soil line but make sure to leave the tip of the stem intact. Gently firm the soil around the stem.

  • Push the blackberry tip into the soil

If the blackberry vines are long enough to reach, you can also start them directly in the soil where you want your new plants to grow. That is what I did in the picture below:

A new blackberry plant

Step 3: Water Lightly and Keep the Soil Moist

Water the pot lightly and keep the soil from drying out. Set the pot where it will not be disturbed.

A new blackberry start in a pot

Step 4: Cut the Stem from the Parent Plant

After about a month you can test to see if your blackberry plant has grown roots. You can do this by very gently tugging at the stem. If it feels firm and stays in place, the blackberry has started to grow roots and is ready to separate from the parent plant.

Cut the stem about 1-2 feet above the soil with using sharp pruners. Your new blackberry start is now ready to plant!

About a month after planting, the stems will grow roots and be ready to separate from the parent plant.

When to Plant Your Blackberry Starts

You can choose to plant your blackberry start immediately or wait until the spring. One advantage of fall plantings is that the blackberries can get a good root system established over the winter. Blackberries may also be more susceptible to cold weather if they are in a pot rather than in the ground.

The first year after planting your new blackberry plant will not produce any berries. But new primocanes will start growing and it will come into full production in the following year or two. You will soon be enjoying large harvests of sweet juicy blackberries!

Marionberries

Hope you get to enjoy blackberries in your garden year after year. Happy Gardening!

Be sure to pin for later!

How to Propagate blackberries in 4 easy steps

Garden Update – October

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On October 24, 2020

In Gardening

It is hard to believe it is already October! The weather is changing and cooler weather is here. We had a challenging gardening month because wildfires stretched across Oregon and the thick smoke hid the September sun for weeks. Despite this, it has been a very busy month in the garden! Here is what we’ve been up to:

Apples

Our apple trees are doing great! I love having a 5-way grafted tree because apples ripen over a much longer season. While our gravenstein apples are ready in July, our other types are ready now. A few weeks ago I picked a 33 pound box of apples. And there are still plenty more on the tree!

What have we been doing with all these apples? Most of them have been eaten fresh. We also made some apple crisp, which is my absolute favorite fall dessert! You can check out the recipe here.

Box full of apples.
Lots of apples for apple crisp!

Beans

I cannot remember bean plants ever being as productive as ours have been this year. The variety I planted was Hickok from Territorial Seed. After setting a large crop in July, we got a second large crop a month later. In mid September we still had flowers and small beans on our plants!

I finally had to pull the bean plants after the weather started getting cooler at night. We have been enjoying lots of garlic roasted green beans! Yum!

Hickok green beans.
We picked beans up through the middle of September. It was a great year!

Beets

I did not plant many beets this year. After our radishes were done in June I poked a few seeds in here and there. I was surprised that they got as big as they did! I will have to plant more next year.

We got some beautiful beets this year! I will be sure to plant more next year.

Blackberries

The canes for our marion berries are growing long! I wound them around the trellis so they were not dragging on the ground. This also prevents them from sprouting new plants. The blackberries seem healthy and strong so think we will have a pretty good harvest next year!

Marion berries on a trellis.
I wound the blackberries around the trellis so they do not drag on the ground. I think we will have a great harvest next year!

Marigold Flowers

I finally took our marigolds out last week. I saved the seeds and you can read more about that here. Marigolds produce SO MANY SEEDS and I will have plenty to plant next year!

Taking marigold seeds out of seed heads
It is easy to save marigold seeds for next year!

Peas

I planted peas a few weeks ago and the seedlings are about 4 inches tall now. I usually start my peas in the fall and overwinter them for a bigger and earlier crop. You can learn more about overwintering pea plants here.

Related post: Why Garden Planning Starts in September

  • Planting pea seeds
I usually plant peas in the fall and overwinter them for an earlier spring harvest.

Sweet Peas

Shortly after I planted my peas, I also planted my sweet pea flowers. After I saw “volunteer” sweet peas coming up already I knew the seeds would sprout easily. I planted a row along the bottom of my trellis so they can get established before winter comes. I am looking forward to early flowers in the spring!

Related post: How to Save Sweet Pea Seeds

Popcorn

Each year we grow something we have never tried before, and the kids chose popcorn to grow this year! We planted the popcorn after the weather warmed in June. However I did not realize that popcorn takes 110-120 days to mature, which is significantly longer than regular sweet corn. It FINALLY got ripe and the end of September.

Glass Gem popcorn.
The popcorn is finally ready. It is SO pretty!!!

Ideally we would have let the popcorn dry in the garden but we had to pick it and bring it indoors since the weather has been so wet. The ears were so beautiful! We pulled the husks back and displayed some of the prettiest ears around the house.

We peeled the rest of the corn and put it in a box in the garage to dry out. We put one ear in the food dehydrator to speed up the process. It was very difficult to get the moisture content just right but finally we got it to pop! So fun!

Place the popcorn in a box to dry.
We peeled the rest of the popcorn and put it in a box in the garage to dry out. It is so pretty to see the variety of different colors!

Pumpkins

We finally picked our pumpkins for the year! One weighed in at 15 pounds and the other was 25 pounds. We did not get as many pumpkins as we do some years. This may be because they were planted in a little more shade. The kids are already looking forward later in the month when they will get to carve them!

Sunflowers

I had to take some of my sunflowers out of the front yard so I made these cute DIY sunflower bird feeders. The birds found them right away and the seeds are almost gone already. It has been a lot of fun to watch the birds out our back window!

Chickadee bird on DIY sunflower birdfeeder.
The birds love these sunflower bird feeders!

Tomatoes

I took out my tomato plants a few weeks ago. The weather has been getting cooler and the tomatoes started ripening much slower. Before I pulled my plants I picked off all of the green fruit to ripen inside. You can read more about ripening green tomatoes here.

Only nine months to go until fresh tomatoes again next year! I am already thinking of what varieties I want to plant 🙂

Related: Cherry Tomato Taste Test

  • Green cherry tomatoes in a basket
Our tomato plants grew huge this year! It’s no wonder we got so many tomatoes! We picked the last of our green tomatoes to ripen inside.

Final Thoughts

It has been a busy month around here but a lot of fun to harvest everything. What have you been up to in your garden? Let me know in the comments below!

Hope you are able to enjoy this beautiful fall weather! Happy Gardening!

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