The Modern Victory Garden

Last spring we put in a new raspberry patch as part of the big garden expansion project.   Ten bare root Heritage raspberries were planted in mid March 2009.   We were right in the midst of clearing the expansion site area and constructing new garden beds, so the planting up process was kept to a bare minimum.   In fact, we did not even put a support structure in place for the raspberries and opted to use some tomato cages and ladders to support the raspberry canes for the first year instead.   The plan was to come back in the fall or following spring and finish up with the support structures.   Here’s what they looked like last year when we first planted them up.         

And here is what they look like now, just a little less than one year later. The area needs weeding and the canes need a little pruning.                          

We had fifty percent survival rate on the bare root nursery stock in that five have grown out and five never even broke dormancy.    Not very happy with that outcome so this spring when I ordered the five replacement Heritage bare root plants – I went to another source for my nursery stock.   Hopefully the next five will have a better success rate.                               

In addition to replacing the failed plantings and constructing a support structure, there was another problem that revealed itself this past year that also needed correcting.    Specifically, the area the bed is planted on is quite sloped and even with drip irrigation it was difficult to keep the plants properly watered because the run off was so severe down the slope.   Knowing the replacement bare root plants will be arriving within the next few weeks, I decided to get going on the first phase of rejuvenating this raspberry patch.   The focus today was on creating a terraced bed for both rows to correct the slope problem, weeding and grubbing out the beds, and pruning the prior year canes back to the growing points.

I have a stack of timbers behind the shop left over from last year’s garden expansion project.   I had been toying with the idea of using them to make beds in the green house but have sinced talked myself out of that idea so these were available to be used for the raspberry patch rejuvenation project. 

The temporary supports and drip irrigation line were removed.   I then dug out the lower edge of the bed, laid out the timbers and anchored them into the soil using stakes and tamped down dirt.   The bed area was then weeded and cultivated and raked level.   The last step was to do a quick pruning - taking off dead sections but leaving the one-year-old wood that had growth so that it will produce a summer harvest for us.     Here’s how the patch looked when I wrapped up for the afternoon.                            

Phase 2 of the raspberry bed rejuvenation project will have to wait until after the replacement plants arrive.   When they get here, I will plant them out and then fertilize the entire bed, reinstall the drip irrigation line, and put down a thick layer of compost over the beds.   The final task will be to then construct the supports for both rows.   Got the hardest part of the project completed today and I think they will do much better with this simple fix. 

Yesterday I planted up a 4-foot by 12-foot section of garden bed in spinach using one of my new planting jigs.   I took pictures as I went but am going to wait to post about it until I am sure it worked as expected – which will be confirmed when the new plants begin emerging.   Hopefully within the next several weeks I will have a complete report for you on this.                    

Do you have any garden “fixes” you are attending to this year?