Just pottering this morning and noticed that the raspberries I inherited with my allotment are starting to bud. I’m pretty chuffed as when I took on the site they were in sorry state and took some serious hacking to get them into shape. Oh the joys of spring!!
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March 10, 2007 at 9:05 pm
jimmoran
Oooh, exciting. I noted today that our Strawberries are growing a bit now. Just need to get hacking a bit now too.
March 10, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Greenmantle
Looks promising. If they’ve been neglected for a bit, a good top dressinng with bonemeal, or blood-fish-bone would be a good idea.
Just scatter it liberally on the soil, and lightly rank it into the top inch. The rain will do the rest.
If we have another dry summer, they will need lots of water, or the canes will brown off, as raspberries roots are very shallow and close to the surface.
GM
March 11, 2007 at 9:28 pm
squarechick
Thanks for advice Greenmantle - up at the plot today it looks like I’ve got another problem with nettles. There are some fairly well established nettle roots and early shoots peeping out from the base of the raspberry canes. I’ve tried digging them and I’m going to try again next week, but it’s hard work as they’re so intertwined with the raspberries. As you mentioned, the raspberry roots are really close to the surface, meaning that when I’m hacking away at the nettles, I start to disturb the raspberries…
Any advice (anyone!?) on an organic way of killing the nettles without harming the raspberries?
March 14, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Mel
I’m a big believer that nothing likes having its head cut off repeatedly. If you can get there often enough, just hack off at ground level the nettles that have shown up. The idea is to let the plants use up the stored energy in the root but don’t let them grow long enough to make big leaves that will store more energy. Eventually, depleted, the nettles give up the ghost and die. I have used this technique succesfully on horsetails in my garden.
Don’t forget to use the nettles you hack. ou can make, tea, soup, soap even, or just stick them on the compost heap. They’re full of good stuff.