Small semi heated cold frame, think it will work?

[drew51]

They should produce all over if they are not everbearing. yes you got it right. But if you want you can prune first year canes (primocanes) to a manageable size. With blackberries not raspberries many prune first year canes when they reach 4-5 feet, these then produce lateral branches that will fruit too, thus increasing yield. That 10 foot cane I assume is a blackberry. Yes it should have been pruned at 5 feet, but it will not hurt the plant in anyway not to prune. it's too late to develop laterals now. Sometimes too, if too long berries are small, so keeping to a reasonable size is acceptable. Length varies from cultivar to cultivar some produce 20 foot canes!

You can also prune raspberries to keep them smaller, and not get crazy long.
They usually form laterals on their own, pruning them does not stimulate laterals like it does with blackberries.
A trellis helps as when they form berries the canes become heavy and could droop, even break. If on the ground, snails and such will eat them.
Same with blackberries canes can break if no support. A fence is good, a trellis better. Stakes can work too.
OK, now we have gone over the more detailed pruning.
Usually 2nd year canes (floricanes) start to look woody and rough. So once experienced, it's easy to tell apart.
Avoid pruning late in the year, if you want to clean up, wait till they are dormant. You want them to harden off for the winter, and pruning can stimulate growth. OK to remove spent canes (ones that fruited) anytime.
If you think about it, you are removing the cane, so not stimulated to grow. Pruning for length though can stimulate lateral growth, which you want to avoid late in the year, like right now! Some wait till dormant to prune spent canes. I do not, as when dormant they all look the same, well not really but is harder to tell what fruited and what did not. I can tell easier just after fruiting so I remove right then.


OK one more thing on raspberry pruning.
Many primocanes can form in one year, You should keep them at about 6 inches apart. So when dormant remove primocanes that are too close, keep them at about 6 inches apart (use best judgment, some 4 inches if only ones within a foot are ok to leave), remove weak spindly primocanes too.
Canes too close block light, strain roots to feed all, and produce poor berries. You will have better fruit by limiting canes to 6 inches apart. So you let them grow all year, (the first year primocanes) then when dormant thin to 6 inches.
A lot of work!

Strawberries need special work too. We have everbearing, day neutral, and summer bearing strawberries. How you grow them does vary.

Blackberries form out of the crown as do Black raspberries. It's OK if canes are close together.

Hopefully this all makes sense. You understood perfectly my other post. Obviously you are a good gardener, and catch on quickly!
When raspberries are grown right they produce well! Here are some photos of mine.


These are a friend's yellows.


Here is one of three patches I have. raspberries are the back row to the left. In front is some tomatoes, next year I'll grow something else there. Rotating crops. Between them is blueberries. Strawberries are near the end. Pole beans against that shed. I will rotate them too. Some beneficial flowers here and there.

[harleysilo]

Was hoping your post some pics, I'll carry on the discussion tomorrow, I was able to take some pictures tonight to further the conversation. Beautiful garden spot!

[harleysilo]

I planted the raspberries/blackberries in 4 places around the yard. Based on how my parent’s plants grow I thought they would be easily contained to one spot. However after a year of growth it appears to do that will require some sort of trellis to direct the shoots. That may cause me to move 2 of them, the ones closest to the large gate in my back yard.

Here are the two that could remain in their current location….





And then seen together on either side of an apple tree….



Here’s the one right behind the cold frame, with the 10’ long shoot



You can see where it ended up touching the ground and rooting itself, so now there are two plants that are connected really….




Not sure how to handle it, should I cut it halfway this winter or leave it as is?

This is the final one, it shooted out as well and also grew into the ground at the end of 2 of the shoots….



This final picture is just to give you a sense of what the garden space is like. I was planning on building 6 more raised beds like the ones I built last spring. I was planning on doing two rows of 3 beds each, opposite the location of the current beds next to the fence. That area still gets full sun even with the really tall shrubbery (thorny olive) growing outside of the fence.

It’s a panoramic picture, so the perspective is a bit off…..

[drew51]

Nice! Yeah you want them on a trellis, and in a place that you can easily control spread.
Around the tree might be bad as the tree shades the plants, they like sun. Depends, you probably have more intense sun than I do in MI. It can work there. But hard to trellis them there. I would probably move them. You could use stakes.
Yes they tip root themselves. Never when you want more plants though! Only when you don't! You can cut them to form two plants, or you can pull it out and trim it down back to one plant. These will fruit. Either way don't leave them like that. You could do it now, it's not going to grow more this year, or wait till fully dormant. Brambles are tough, my advice is good, but at time exceptions can be made. Mine are almost dormant, not quite, but I needed to remove a net, some canes were really tangled in it, so I cut them out now. Not the best time. Late winter is the very best time. Also while I was out there, thinned them too. Everything is dormant now, at almost noon it's 19F right now. Really here now it is a bad time to expose canes by cutting to this cold. But they are tough, probably won't hurt them.

Your plants are young, they will grow like crazy eventually. Here is a 2 year old blackberry.
It is a semi-upright. The main stem is thicker than my thumb. It is over 5 feet tall, with canes going everywhere. All those are primocanes. All grew this year. So expect crazy growth next year. On the left border to this plant are young plants the size of yours under the leaves for winter protection. Here it can go below zero, so they need protection. Leaves around the base to keep the crown warm.
I will spray the upright canes with wilt-proof to help them survive. I should have done this, now have to wait till above freezing. Next Monday looks like a good day here to do it.
Yeah raspberries are the worst spreaders, they tend not to tip root, but suckers off the mother plant can come up out of nowhere 6 feet or farther from the mother plant. Most times right next to it, but I have seen suckers emerge 8 feet away.

[drew51]

In the above photo that plant was pruned back, it was a lot bigger. I may prune down the canes drooping, they will be trellised next year. I grow many trailing types that I can put on the ground to cover. Here is a section of trailing types covered with leaves. I need to cover them more though. At the end is another semi-upright type. That's Jesse the wonder dog, whom protects the garden from intruders.



Here is Jesse again next to my blueberry plant showing full fall colors. Raspberries behind the blueberry plant, and behind Jesse is a strawberry patch.




Jesse is a beautiful, smart, and super friendly dog. Everybody loves him.
A photo from last winter when he was a puppy. He is an AKC registered Australian Shepherd.

[harleysilo]

So in hindsight, I clearly made a choice to plant without fullying understanding the growing requirements.

So you trellis them for the growing season, and then remove the trellis, and lie them on the ground and cover them with leaves for insulation from the cold. We don't have that kind of cold down here I don't think. I think i could treat them as one would treat a grapevine, more of a permanent trellis, do you think that would work?

Our dogs pick off and play with the tomatoes. Our cats hide in the gardens and try and catch birds. It's a hoot to watch. We thought adding a bird bath would keep the birds from poking the ripe tomatoes but it hasn't stopped them. Luckily they don't do too much damage.

[drew51]

I don't remove the trellis. It's there, just hard to see the wires. The black connectors on the 4x4 post in the above photo show where the wires are, you can see them. The green posts are for a chickenwire fence. That keeps my dog out. he knows not to go into the raised beds, but the blackberries are in ground, and he just doesn't get it? So I had to put the fence up as he was running through ripping canes out as he hit them. He is super fast and young! He just plows through anything in his way. Yes you do not have to do what I do. Yes leave them on the trellis. Next spring I will remove the leaves and tie up the canes. Any new canes that form will be left to sprawl on the ground. The trailing types stay on the ground. Boysenberry, Tayberry, Wyeberry, Black Diamond, and Columbia Star, etc.
My dog now leaves everything alone, he does a great job of even keeping the birds out. I lost about 5 fruits to animals this year. At first he was leaving the birds alone, but seeing me chase them, he now chases them too. (and I praise him).

Again I only tie floricanes to my trellis, so nothing is tied right now all floricanes fruited and were removed. I will tie the semi-uprights too to help support the heavy fruit bearing canes. I let them go where they want as primocanes.

[drew51]

I use a 2 wire system for blackberries. I tie canes to either the 3 foot or 5 foot wire. With raspberries i use a 4 wire system. Two wires on either side. I use conduit poles in this application, seen on either side of raspberry bed.


I use heavyduty wire tighteners to keep lines taut.
You can see them in this photo

[harleysilo]

So apparently it's been about 50 days already since i planted the first seeds in the green house. This weekend i pulled up about 20 radishes, a few were around 2" in diameter, and the white ones i grew looked like small carrots. My parents commeneted that they tasted much better then theirs, less hot, more mild, less acidic i think was what they said.

Other than the Kale which took off, and is really good btw, everything else is still growing. That's carrot's, spinach, brocolli (if it sprouted i can't tell as i only planted a few), and of course more radishes.

So what i quickly learned was that my design is terrible. It either needs to be full fledged walk in OR really close to the ground. So what i'm thinking for next year it i'll do both. One bed will be full walk in doing the cattle panel thing and then the others will be some variation of what i did this year but with wood walls, sloped top, but max 12" height or so above top of raised bed.

I need to take some pics what's growing in there is impressive (to me at least lol)

[harleysilo]

This is the bed that isn't covered, planted about the same time...


Here is the greenhouse...

[harleysilo]

Some thoughts...

The Kale and radishes are doing great. I didn't plant enough spinache. The carrots and onions need another month i think at least (should review seed packs). I need to weed it. It's over planted. I haven't watered in a month.

[drew51]

Looks great yeah the cold frame made a huge difference. very cool!

[harleysilo]

Well, i underestimated the freeze last week. I opened it up and all my radishes and the kale froze. The spinache, carrots and onions looked fine. Time to re-seed.

[harleysilo]

So the strawberries i transplanted at the end of last season have really done well in the coldframe. I dug some up and transplanted them into the raised bed i'm going to dedicate to strawberries yesterday. They have little green berries and flowers already.





I've got six more strawberries to dig up, i am waiting to make sure the transplanted ones survive the full sun.

[drew51]

Looks good, is that landscape fabric? A tarp? I should do that! Instead I have a mass of unruly plants. Still too early here to do much. My berries are covered in straw and pine straw still. For a couple more weeks anyway.