182 Growing Raspberries, Boysenberries, Blackberries

Show Transcript

GB 182 TRANSCRIPT Growing Raspberries, Boysenberries, Blackberries 

Farmer Fred  0:00  

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. it's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred. Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot. 

Farmer Fred  0:32  

I like to start every day with a whole grain, high fiber breakfast cereal topped with 2 cups of fresh blueberries, blackberries and raspberries, which is especially tasty when they’re fresh from the yard. Here in California, harvest season for those are perhaps six weeks away. And wherever you live, you can probably grow some kind of berries. We covered growing blueberries back in Episode 67. Today, in Episode 182, we talk with Master Gardener and expert home Blackberry, Boysenberry and raspberry grower, Pam Bone, who has lots of good tips for growing these tasty, healthy treats. It’s all about berries!  We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots. And we will do it all in just a little over 30 minutes. Let’s go!      

Farmer Fred  1:32  

We're at the house of Master Gardener Pam Bone here in Sacramento County. And she loves raspberries and you ought to see her raspberry garden. So today we're going to talk some raspberry basics. And Pam, this is a rather phenomenal stretch of raspberries you have here it looks to be about 25 feet long and about eight feet deep. But what I like is that you have incorporated rows between the raspberries so that you never have to reach more than two and a half feet to pick the berries. So that was smart thinking, putting the rows that you can walk on to be able to reach all the berries.

Pam Bone  2:07  

That is really critical. Actually, it's really difficult. Otherwise, you don't get into the middle to harvest; it's hard for pruning. Later on, it's hard for pest control, it's really important. So what we did is we have some raised beds, they originally were two by sixes, they've sort of disintegrated over the years, but the soil has built up and then between those raised beds, then we put down a lot of mulch. And over the years, it's raised up as well. And so what we have is pathways throughout the whole area. And you can get you can reach and pick and harvest. And it's really easy to get to it. And it makes it a lot easier than a big solid block. And that is really important.

Farmer Fred  2:50  

How adaptable are raspberries to the United States? Are there zone limitations?

Pam Bone  2:55  

Well, some people would tell you that they can't grow raspberries in Sacramento that they have a really horrible time.  We've been growing raspberries here at our house for practically the whole time we've lived here, which is nearly 42 years and there are certain varieties for certain locations. So you have to know what will do well here. You also have to know the location they require, how much sun can they take. You have to have sun in order to produce the berry itself. But here in our area, we have been planting Heritage and Oregon 1030. And those are varieties that are adapted to the heat. And the Heritage variety is still available everywhere. My daughter grows Heritage in Washington in Pullman, Washington. So these are what we call the fall bearers or everbearers. And they are a little bit different variety than the kind that you put up on a trellis and all. Actually they're much easier to prune, just go to your local Cooperative Extension or your nursery and find out what varieties are adapted to your area and what are their growth habits. And do you want that kind of growth habit? How much work are you willing to do with training them and pruning them and everything? So we've adapted very well here and produce huge crops of berries.

Farmer Fred  4:15  

If you look at the picture that's with today's episode of Pam's raspberry bed you you see a lot of T posts sticking up with a lot of wires. And judging by the heights of the wires, it looks like these raspberries get maybe six feet tall?

Pam Bone  4:27  

Oh yes, definitely they will grow at least that far. And and then in fact sort of hanging over. So I'd say they might even be seven feet tall. They grow beautifully in our area in the location that we have and very vigorously and we found that this system maintains them without having to do a huge trellis system because what these are, they are pruned down not to the ground but to basically brown sticks in the winter months. And then the new spring growth comes up and then they keep growing and then New growth comes up from the base to produce a fall crop. What we found is that it's almost like creating a little playpen for them. All you really need are wires that go around, just to hold the berries inside, so that they'll be remain upright. So all we do here is you just move the berries as they grow into the wires. And then they're just held inside. And so we've got a center wire here just so they won't flop. And it's a really ideal system. We found it works really, really well for this type of everbearer or fall bearer raspberry.

Farmer Fred  5:39  

What's the spacing on these plants?

Pam Bone  5:41  

Well, what were what was the spacing on the plants originally?

Farmer Fred  5:45  

And what is it now?

Pam Bone  5:50  

We harvest a lot of plants that come up in between the rows, and we have another little nursery area, that's too much shade for very much  production. So we then harvest and and we replace plants that die out. And I would say they're probably about maybe a foot apart, or so they probably started out back in the day about two feet apart. But no, this  is a block system, it's okay for them to be a little bit crowded. But you can see there's some areas that are a little bit more open and other areas that it's a little bit more compact and that so I don't think you can really mess up with this system at all. And they can be fairly close together. Remember, raspberries send up nice little new plants all over the place. And so if you space them far apart, they're going to fill in on their own anyhow, so you don't have to crowd them when you first start.

Farmer Fred  6:43  

This is being irrigated by a drip irrigation system, you have lines and quarter inch tubing, it looks like the emitters are spaced eight or 12 inches apart. And the lines themselves are maybe a foot apart each to ensure equal soaking of the soil. Are raspberries a thirsty plant?

Pam Bone  7:02  

They are, they do need even watering, regular watering. And we did find out kind of the hard way we've always used a drip irrigation system. But back in the old day before they had pressure compensating in line emitters, we had this laser tubing, and it just really produced a lot of water and we want it to be more efficient. And so even though it was on a drip system, we wanted to change to these new lines. And we found out we've got to put a lot more of these in here because these plants are thirstier than we thought and that laser tubing was putting out a lot more water. Luckily, it puts it out very efficiently. But yes, I would say we do water these once a week. And when we do, they may have to run for four to six hours at a time. Depending on the heat and how hot it gets in the summertime, here or what kind of a hot spell we're having or whatever, we may then turn it on twice a week, and just not run it quite as long. So I adjust it. but right now it's set for once a week and I believe it's on for four hours. 

Farmer Fred  8:08  

Alright, it's springtime when we're recording this. So those  would be spring hours of irrigation.

Pam Bone  8:13  

Right. And we increase it. What we want to do is increase the amount of water that is put on at any one time so we're not doing any shallow irrigation. These roots are not extremely deep at all. Not like a fruit tree or anything. But you do want to wet the soil down at least a foot to 18 inches and keep it moist; and we mulch. Everything is mulch, mulch, mulch and a lot of compost over the top as the top dressing to save water, to keep the water into the soil. Try to be as energy and water efficient as we possibly can. But berries I will say just like any fruit crop in your landscape, if you really have to save water because you're in a drought or whatever, then get rid of your lawn because you can't get rid of your fruit trees. And unfortunately, fruit trees, berries and other things like that take just about as much water as a lawn if not more, but look at what you're getting out of it.

Farmer Fred  9:10  

You can eat the berries, it's kind of hard to eat grass.

Pam Bone  9:13  

That's exactly right. So we just keep reducing the lawn, if we feel like we need to save water.

Farmer Fred  9:19  

With all the compost and mulch you're using, what sort of fertilizer regimen do you need for raspberries? 

Pam Bone  9:25  

Actually, we don't have to do much of anything. But once a year in the spring, we do topdress with usually something with higher nitrogen, just like all fruit of all sorts and we grow a lot of fruits in our landscape. They need nitrogen to grow and to produce fruit. People think oh, you need phosphorus and potassium. But  we've done a lot of soil testing in our area. And I worked for the Cooperative Extension for many years and saw a lot of soil tests come by. And for the most part, we don't see a lot of phosphorus and potassium deficiencies in our woody plants and are fruit trees. Are berries, they might need a little bit more because they don't have as extensive as a root system. So what I usually generally do is just buy something that is an all purpose, higher in nitrogen fertilizer, as long as it doesn't have any kind of a weed killer in it. lawn fertilizer works just just as well.

Farmer Fred  10:20  

Yeah, exactly. There are a lot of good like starter lawn fertilizers that take their time to break down and can feed the plants for a much longer period of time. And actually, lawn fertilizers are fairly good choice for a lot of massive plantings like raspberries here. And also, there's like you say, as long as you avoid the weed and feed products, and just stick with the feed products, you're okay.

Pam Bone  10:46  

That's true. And actually, this year, we did put on a lawn fertilizer, we went out and purchased, we needed some more for the lawn itself. And so I thought, well, let me look for one that is high in nitrogen, but has a little phosphorus and potassium and little NPK in there. And that will be good for the berry plants. We also, in addition grow boysenberries as well. And so I needed something that we could do for those as well. And then we can just use the same old thing on our citrus and our apple tree and everything else. One fertilizer makes it a lot easier.

Farmer Fred  11:21  

Raspberries, Harvest time is when? And how do you harvest them? And how long can you store them?

Pam Bone  11:27  

Well, the berries, this particular variety, remember,  these are the two-crop variety, and a lot of people may grow raspberries that only produce a spring crop. This one also produces the fall crop, Heritage. Heritage is the one that you can find in the nurseries now. And it's it's pretty much everywhere. I think they sell it all over the United States, that particular variety. Then we'll start bearing a crop in late May, early June. And we'll get a pretty good crop then. In fact, actually, it might even be mid-May this year, it looks like some of the flowers are getting pretty well developed already at the ends. Now this is a flower-fruiting cycle, where these are the old canes from last year that were cut down. And then the new growth that you see here is all from last year, as soon as these bear here in about another month or month and a half or so, then they are going to die back and then all the new canes arising from below that are going to come up. They're going to produce then a fall crop. And I will say that it's kind of unpredictable, but most of the time are, quote fall crop and I should say fall with quotes around it because really the crop starts in August. And it'll go till Thanksgiving easily in our area unless we get a really cold snap.

Farmer Fred  12:51  

So when that stem has produced berries, that stem should be removed?

Pam Bone  12:55  

We usually wait until it starts to look like it's not productive at all. And then we  cut it out. And the reason is, we used to just leave them but we found out that we had that mite problem when we had a little bit of drought stress. And we found that if it's too crowded, you don't get the air circulation, the leaves get dusty and dry. And mites love that. And we just found that it was easier just to remove it, open it up and get rid of it. And then it left a lot of opportunity for the rest of the canes to come up and grow. And then  those come up, then they fruit and we get a great crop. I say the heaviest crop is mid August to the end of September, a great crop. And I put up a lot of jam. So my husband has to pick, he does all the picking. I do all the putting up. My husband calls himself the gardener. I'm the horticulturist, we used to work together on a lot of this stuff. But now he's got me in the kitchen, you know, putting all this stuff up, he then will harvest about every five days. Because if you don't, two things will happen, the fruit will get soft and mushy, and then they will stop producing. But the soft and mushy attracts a fruit fly that goes to our cherry trees, as well, here, and we haven't had a real problem the last few years if you're really careful with keeping it up. But sometimes if you let that particular fruit fly go wild here, it will infest the fruit with unknown little white maggots until you're making your jam and all of a sudden there they are. Especially the fall crops. So you have to be really careful and really religious about getting rid of any fruit that's too soft or decayed or whatever.

Farmer Fred  14:41  

Picking the raspberries. Can you pluck them or do you have to cut them?

Pam Bone  14:44  

These you just pull right off. They pull off very easily and are not a problem at all. And in fact when we get down to the boysenberries, it's the same thing, you can just pull them right right off. You don't have to cut anything. They're very easy to pick. They're a little bit thorny,  a little bit of prickles on them, but not too bad.

Farmer Fred  15:05  

What does Mike the gardener use to a store the raspberries as he's picking them? Does he have a big bag? Or is he just carrying a bucket?

Pam Bone  15:14  

 I like them to be in a colander, and so I have a lot of large metal colandars and some plastic colenders. That way, there's more broad surface area, he brings them into the house then. And I kind of make sure that they are well distributed because I put them in the refrigerator. And actually raspberries have a very, very long refrigerator life, they can easily stay in a refrigerator and without having to put them up or do anything with them for five to seven days, and not see any decay or anything as long as you've picked them without already having a problem with a soft fruit. I try to get to them though and put them up if I can within about two to three days. But if something happens, and I get a little behind, it's really producing heavily, I can leave some of them in there, it works out really well. 

Farmer Fred  16:02  

Anything else you want to mention about raspberries?

Pam Bone  16:04  

Well, I think raspberries are pretty easy to grow. And they're easy to prune and take care of. They produce a beautiful crop and make fabulous jam, you just have to be careful to attention for making sure you mulch, making sure that they don't ever  suffer any kind of a drought. Keep them irrigated evenly without too much water, they are sensitive to root rot. Our soil is a heavy clay soil. And we do have a type of Phytophthora in our soil that does infect our raspberries occasionally.  I've had it actually identified at a state lab to make sure. So what we do is we just make sure that we pull those out occasionally and then I really watch the irrigation, to make sure that we're not keeping it too wet or whatever. But we're still going to get a little bit of it because it's in our soil, and you've got a heavy clay soil and even just normal spring or winter rains or whatever keeps the soil wet. And as soon as that fungus gets active, then you have to be careful not to keep it too wet. And so it's kind of walking a little bit of a fine line there with the irrigation but otherwise they're pretty carefree. Once a year fertilization is it. And the pruning doesn't take much time and I highly recommend raspberries, they're, they're fabulous, and they taste really good.

Farmer Fred  17:21  

Well, let's walk over to the other berries and see what's growing. 

Farmer Fred  17:29  

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Farmer Fred  19:25  

We are at Pam Bone's house here in Sacramento County. Pam Bone, famous Sacramento County Master Gardener, the original Sacramento County Master Gardener, by the way. And we are at her home where they have developed a yard for over 40 years and Pam loves berries. Pam, it's almost like Knott's Berry Farm here. You've got boysenberries here.

Pam Bone  19:45  

Yes, I come from Washington State, my husband comes from Oregon State and you have to grow berries, raspberries, boysenberries, whatever. Boysenberries are just ideal for making pies and I make a lot of pies. They make a wonderful jam. And of course, they're delicious for fresh eating as well. And they love our Sacramento climate.

Farmer Fred  20:05  

Ah, so does that mean that in a state like Washington, they wouldn't do well?

Pam Bone  20:09  

No, they do great there too. They love it there, they do just as fine. You just have to decide, do you have the sun for them, they just like full sun. And they do really well, in that they are very adaptable actually.

Farmer Fred  20:24  

Describe the trellis that you've designed for them. 

Pam Bone  20:27  

Years ago, we had a massive system with the big wooden cross bars on it, and the ones that you see commercially. It's a pretty daunting thing, too. And it takes a lot of time and energy to install, and it's expensive. And one day, we had a massive tree fall and literally destroy our entire berry patch here, including the cross bars. And so we decided, you know what, we're gonna do this a little easier. And we're going to use these T-bars, these metal T-bars with wires. And it works just beautifully. It holds them nicely, we've got a T-bar spaced out so that you've got not too much tension on the wire or, you know, too much stress on the wires here. And then we've got the three wire system so that the berries can be trained in three different locations and tied on with little twisty ties. And then we use kind of a barrel method, sort of where you, you come up from the base of the plant, and then you go on to one of the wires and train the branches, sometimes as a barrel loop if you've got a long enough cane, and they loop around, gives a little more maximum sun exposure for the plant. But yeah, these T-bars just work really, really well. They stay in the soil nicely. And then you can see there, they turn in just a little on the edges just because some of the tensions late in the season. But you can twist the wire a little bit tighter and and it works great. And it's inexpensive, easy to do and not so daunting.

Farmer Fred  22:00  

For those of you technically minded, the T-bars are spaced about eight to 10 feet apart. And there's a three wire system on here that looks like it begins about 18 inches above the ground. And the next two wires are also spaced by another 18 inches. And so the total height of this is maybe four and a half to five feet.

Pam Bone  22:20  

Yes, and then some of the berries later in the season, then they'll stick up a little bit further and there are a lot over just a bit. But otherwise this contains them pretty nicely actually, you can see that we do have some canes that are growing past the wires. But for the most part, it works well for us. If you've got a really really vigorous canes growing, then you might want to make a little bit taller.

Farmer Fred  22:47  

And a little bit more support on the ends as well.

Pam Bone  22:50  

Exactly, That's true, too. If they get really heavy and laden down, then the wires then sag. And we get a little bit of that, but gosh, it's a really inexpensive easy way to do it and if for some reason you had to move it or adjust things or whatever, it's easy to do this whole thing with the big wooden cross bars and people putting them in concrete and whatever else they do it's it's like digging for a fence. A permanent structure may not be what you need to have.

Farmer Fred  23:23  

How do you care for boysenberries? What are the watering requirements, the fertilization and the pruning requirements?

Pam Bone  23:30  

Well, as far as watering goes, they need regular irrigation, at least once a week irrigation. We have a drip irrigation system, using the inline emitters in rows down the berries themselves. We have three lines on each of the rows. So we encompass most of the root system. And then we want to make sure that we run that drip irrigation as long as water is flowing down into the root system, we want it to go down in as far as we can, which is going to be at least 18 inches. 12 to 18 inches is where most of those roots are contained. So you want to make sure that you run the irrigation long enough. I will say that I find that most people do not run their drip irrigation long enough, and they just dribble out a little bit of water. Then  you get a very shallow root system and what happens if you have a dry spell? You forget to water, something happens or whatever, then the plants are really suffering. So watering is really critical. The other thing that we do is we put on a lot of wood chips. We get a lot of arborist wood chips that are delivered to us and put that on and then we always top dress with compost. We have a lot of compost piles. We have a lot of oak trees and other trees that produce leaves and plus of course I save all my kitchen scraps  and that compost, then, makes a wonderful top dressing. It doesn't completely eliminate fertilization. But it helps to give you a little bit of nutrition as well as keeping the soil moist and cool and helping to mitigate soil fluctuations in temperatures and then it's going to help with your watering as well. So fertilizing then, about once a year, already did it just a few weeks ago, just as the growth is starting up in usually early March, then we go in with an all purpose fertilizer or in our case, this year, and in years past, we often just get a an all purpose lawn fertilizer, high in nitrogen, which these berries need, but it still gives you a little bit of phosphorus and potassium. But nitrogen is necessary. People don't realize that you got to have the growth in order to produce flowers and fruits and the fact that we're putting on a lot of mulch and a lot of compost on top and that the soil in our area isn't real deficient and phosphorus and potassium, you don't need very much of it, you're going to get it from your mulch, and your compost, a little bit anyhow. So the nitrogen is the one thing that is transitory. You put it on and it flows right out when you water. You got to be careful not to overwater, you'll lose your nitrogen. So nitrogen is real important that it be put on annually for all fruits, whether they're bushes, or vines or fruit trees.

Farmer Fred  26:20  

It's always a good idea to have your soil tested before you do any planting, so you know exactly what your soil needs. There are a couple of inexpensive University related soil testing sites that will be glad to take your $20 and send you back a soil test report. One is the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the other is Colorado State University. If you do an internet search for either of those universities and put in the words "soil test", you'll get the details on how to go about that. And they're fairly complete soil tests, too. So that is a inexpensive option. Of course, you can always soil test for macronutrients and pH yourself. You can find those kits at any garden center or nursery. But yeah, know your soil before you plant anything. Are the boysenberries like raspberries, in that once a branch produces, it's done?

Pam Bone  27:08  

Yes. And in fact, in this case, because our raspberries I was saying earlier, are fall bearers or everbearers people call them that because they produce two crops. This produces one crop, we get a crop in June, and then that's it. And then those berries, as soon as they start to really dry back and look kind of crispy, you just remove them, then the new canes are all coming up from the base of the plant. And we let them just sprawl on the ground while the others are dying back, then we take them out and at some point, put the new ones up onto the trellis.

Farmer Fred  27:44  

Alright, boysenberries, and what do you do with them? When do you harvest them?

Pam Bone  27:48  

Harvesting is in June in our area. Basically, they're pretty much finished by the Fourth of July, we can usually count on the last crop just about them. And they will start producing about the first week of June. And you can just you just come out and pick them. you pick them with your fingers. You don't have to use any kind of pruning equipment or anything like that. You just pluck them off and they store very nicely in a colander in the refrigerator and I make a lot of pies and jam with them and we eat them fresh and just love them. They're great. boysenberries are one of the most versatile berries and do well in a variety of climates. They actually will tolerate the sun even better than raspberries in full sun, they don't do well in the shade. They'll produce a lot of vine, but who wants that? And then you do have to do one thing with boysenberries. Like any Blackberry, because they're a type of Blackberry,  they will send up errant blackberries and you can get the Blackberry mess if you're not careful when the patch gets overgrown. So just go out there and make sure you tidy up the rows occasionally and dig out those ones. Otherwise, we don't find them becoming the jungle at all, unless you're just not keeping up with it. 

Farmer Fred  29:03  

Are there boysenberry varieties?

Pam Bone  29:06  

Boysenberry is a variety of blackberry. So there are nectar berries, which some people say boysenberries and nectarberries are the same. There are loganberries, there are a lot of berries. These are all types of berries that were developed from a Blackberry and then there are lots of just blackberries that are not crosses but have been also genetically grown to produce different varieties of blackberries so you can just get an ordinary Blackberry. These are a larger berry a little bit softer berry I like them because I think they're better for pies. We did grow egular blackberries, as well, but found they weren't to my satisfaction for baking with them and making jam, so we took them out and put in more boysenberries.

Farmer Fred  29:59  

How daunting are the thorns on these?

Pam Bone  30:01  

You know, back in the day when we first put these in, the thornless berries didn't produce very well, they were not very good varieties. Now I understand from a lot of growers and from the Master Gardeners that grow these at our Fair Oaks Horticulture Center that a lot of the thornless varieties are excellent now and do produce well. So we put in 40 varieties and they're not that bad. I will say when we're tying them up, often times, you have to put tape or something on your fingers to prevent yourself from just getting little prickles into your fingers. But they're not that bad. And they just produce so well.

Farmer Fred  30:37  

It is a little hard to be tying branches up to wires when you're wearing thick goatskin gloves.

Pam Bone  30:43  

You can't do that. That's the problem. Actually what works pretty well now  is just the little thin latex gloves you use for just cleaning up around the house and that they actually work pretty well for being able to tie with those. And then you can replace them and they're cheap. 

Farmer Fred  31:01  

There you go. That's a good quick tip. We are in the boysenberry patch at Pam Bone's house. It's It looks to be berry delicious, he said punnily. Thank you, Pam.

Pam Bone  31:10  

Thank you very much Fred. I enjoy sharing my crop with you.

Farmer Fred  31:16  

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Farmer Fred  33:11  

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