Berries!

Strawberries, brambles are best fruits to grow in backyards
Sunday, April 5, 2009 3:48 AM
By JANE C. MARTIN

Plant strawberries in the spring for best results. Of all the fruit crops grown in backyard gardens, strawberries and brambles are considered the easiest to grow.

They require less space than other fruiting crops and produce fruit sooner. Both crops grow best in full sun and in loose, fertile soil that contains abundant organic matter. The soil should also be well-drained and slightly acidic, having a pH of 5.8 to 6.5.

Both crops have specific cultural requirements that take time and effort. Yet, over the long term, the reward of a good harvest makes it all worth it. Both also have some pest issues, but selecting disease-resistant varieties helps avoid some of these.

Strawberries are available as bare-root plants, and installing them in spring is best. June-bearing strawberries are spaced 12 to 24 inches apart, with rows 36 to 40 inches apart. Because drainage must be excellent for strawberries, they can be planted in raised beds or on ridges.

Avoid planting strawberries where potatoes, tomatoes or sod recently grew because insect and disease problems might arise. Mulch the plants with 3 to 4 inches of straw to conserve moisture.
Remove flowers for the first six weeks after planting, and remove all runners the first season.
This allows the plants to establish well and set flower buds for a good crop in the second year, with harvest from late May into early July.

One plant yields about a quart of berries during the first fruiting season. During the second and third seasons, berry production continues but drops off. Plans should be made to replant, overlapping the last bearing season with a new planting (in which flowers and runners are removed) for continuous production.

Some of the other cultural requirements for strawberries include weed control, irrigation, renovation (after each harvest) and winter protection.

Many varieties of berries are available, and it's important to find those that meet the gardener's needs for use (fresh or frozen), yield and disease resistance.

Brambles (raspberries and blackberries) are also suitable for home plantings. June is the month for harvesting red and black raspberries, followed by purple and yellow raspberries in July. July is the peak month for blackberries; fall-bearing red raspberries produce from mid-August up to frost.

These crops also begin producing fruit during the second season. They require more space than strawberries but are perennials that continue for many years as long as they're properly pruned and managed.

Many varieties of brambles can be considered. Among the black raspberries, Bristol, Jewel and Black Hawk are considered to be vigorous and productive.

Cultivated brambles should be in full sun and at least 300 feet from wild brambles to avoid insect and diseases that often plague wild berry thickets. Planting in the spring is preferred over fall. Avoid planting where potatoes, tomatoes or eggplants recently grew.

The Ohio State University Extension has produced the Midwest Home Fruit Production Guide (Bulletin No. 940), a 148-page guide to backyard fruit-growing that includes cultural and pest-management practices for the small fruits, grapes, less-common fruits (such as papaw and quince), currants and tree-fruit crops. This bulletin is available at ohioline.osu.edu/b940/index.html.

Jane C. Martin is a horticulturist. Gardeners may find answers to their questions at plantfacts.osu. edu/faq.

The Columbus Dispatch: Growing Interest

From May to October, Tim McDermott can feast on an all-he-can-eat buffet of vegetables grown in his garden.

The Grandview Heights gardener even froze 70 pounds of produce from last season's harvest, including more than 50 varieties of vegetables.

While McDermott's harvest was plentiful, his costs were low: $60 on seeds, soil and fertilizer and $70 to rent a community plot in Grandview's Wallace Gardens.

"It's amazingly cheaper than buying food at the store," said McDermott, 41, a veterinarian. "A packet of lettuce seeds will cost you $2 and grow all the lettuce you need for five years, honestly."

During this gardening season -- and recession -- that's what vegetable growers might be hoping to hear.

A National Gardening Association survey shows 43 million American households plan to grow fruits or vegetables this year -- up 19 percent from 2008. More than half the respondents named grocery bills as a motivation.

"Everyone wants to start (growing vegetables); you cannot believe the number of folks," said Bill Dawson, coordinator of the Growing to Green community-gardening program at the Franklin Park Conservatory.

"It's more than a trend; it's almost getting back to the victory gardens" of World War II.
To yield such a large crop, McDermott starts growing plants under lights in his basement and cultivates "aggressively" in his 30-by-40-foot plot.

But with a space even half that size, gardeners such as Greg Hostetler, 33, have cut their spending on food.

For about $30 in seeds, Hostetler grows about a dozen vegetables using a 16-by-18-foot garden in the University District.

"I've always loved to garden," he said of his reason to start a backyard plot last year, "but it was money. I saved at least $15 a week on grocery bills during the main season."

Before new gardeners start dreaming of savings, though, experts advise that they first focus on
the realities of their soil.

"Typically, our soil is very heavy clay -- and not many things grow well in heavy clay soil," said Gary Gao, horticulture educator at the Ohio State University Extension of Delaware County.

To improve soil structure, gardeners can purchase new topsoil or amend the existing dirt with compost, adding fertilizers as needed to replace missing elements.

"That goes a long way toward food production and making sure the plants have the nutrients they need," said Trisha Dehnbostel, programming manager for Local Matters, a nonprofit group that advocates access to fresh food in central Ohio.

Compost can be purchased -- or, for more cost savings, made out of kitchen scraps such as eggshells and leftover fruits and vegetables.

From there, gardeners should think about which vegetables to grow -- not only the ones they like to eat, but the ones they can maintain through possible problems with growth, diseases or pests.

Even after a decade of gardening, McDermott still won't attempt to grow certain vegetables -- describing corn as "rotten" and carrots as "a misery."

But that still leaves him with salads of just about everything else.
asaunders@dispatch.com

Creating a Three Sisters Garden

From http://www.kidsgardening.com/ -

"In a three sisters planting, the three partners benefit one another. Corn provides support for beans. Beans, like other legumes, have bacteria living on their roots that help them absorb nitrogen from the air and convert it to a form that plants can use. (Corn, which requires a lot of nitrogen to grow, benefits most.) The large, prickly squash leaves shade the soil, preventing weed growth, and deter animal pests. The three sisters also complement each other nutritionally."

I would love to try this in our garden. Here is a link to directions, and the title of this post is a link to another resource.