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I have loads of wild blackberries here but the store bought thornless ones produce berries that are 4 times bigger and much sweeter. I started with 6 or 7 plants and now have dozens. Each season the vines branch out and droop down to touch the ground and make more plants. I know one thing for sure, the thornless are a lot less painful to pick!
 
I have loads of wild blackberries here but the store bought thornless ones produce berries that are 4 times bigger and much sweeter. I started with 6 or 7 plants and now have dozens. Each season the vines branch out and droop down to touch the ground and make more plants. I know one thing for sure, the thornless are a lot less painful to pick!

Amen to that Brent!
 
For those of you with orchards this may help:

Currants and gooseberries. These bear on 1- and 2-year-old wood. Four-year-old and older wood produces poor berries and should be removed. Clean up bushes by removing the oldest shoots in winter, thinning out the new growth, and cutting out dead wood. If berries are very small one year, thin the following winter.

Elderberry bear fruit on the tips of one-year-old shoots and the canes of two and three-year-old wood. Canes older than three years are less productive and should be thinned out.

Blueberries with the potential to grow to heights of 4 to 8 feet, blueberry bushes require regular pruning. However, pruning can also be a cause of a blueberry bush not producing. Berries only form on wood that is 1 year old. Therefore, if you overprune a blueberry bush by removing all the 1-year-old wood, very few berries will be produced until the following year. Instead of pruning new wood, prune away the older stems which are between 4 and 6 years old.

Once reaching this age, these stems will no longer produce the new wood on which berries grow. Prune from the base near the ground, allowing new canes to grow from the roots. Also, avoid pruning away the tips of 1-year-old wood. This is where the fruit buds are formed; if removed, no blueberries will grow until the following year.
 
There are no berries on the tall canes in the picture. Some are ten feet tall and bigger around than my thumb.
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Nature's security fencing
 
We got our new garden tilled and covered 200' x 150' we are making the green house x2 out of PVC pipe, we are going to cover it with 30 Mil clear vinyl marine grade tarp, we will cover that tarp with 4Mil clear painters tarp, when it gets dirty we will just replace it with a new 4Mil tarp up, cheaper and easier than replacing the 30 Mil. Purchased 2 Modine HD75 gas heater for the green houses.

This late winter the green houses should be completed and ready.
 
I seem to be growing a really evil thorny mess in the garden now. Each season I pull them up and till bu they run underground and are prolific. Sometime over winter I will mow them down and decide what to do about them. I’d love to use weed killer but don’t want that crap in the ground. I’m not exaggerating at all, these weeds are tough, wall to wall thick and thorny as hell. They seem to really love the conditioned soil I’ve worked so hard on.
 
I seem to be growing a really evil thorny mess in the garden now. Each season I pull them up and till bu they run underground and are prolific. Sometime over winter I will mow them down and decide what to do about them. I’d love to use weed killer but don’t want that crap in the ground. I’m not exaggerating at all, these weeds are tough, wall to wall thick and thorny as hell. They seem to really love the conditioned soil I’ve worked so hard on.

Why not use vinegar and water?
 
we are going to cover it with 30 Mil clear vinyl marine grade tarp, we will cover that tarp with 4Mil clear painters tarp, when it gets dirty we will just replace it with a new 4Mil tarp up, cheaper and easier than replacing the 30 Mil.
Excellent idea Maverick, wanting to build a greenhouse too, just need to calculate right, I only get a few hundred bucks a month now and gotta be thrifty. The back garden is only 30 ft X 60 ft and too large for me to build a greenhouse, the only problem is, ever year or so, for some unknown reason, some kind of smoke or fog comes through at night and destroys everything, apples, pears, figs, peaches, tomatoes...everything within 3 days, just withered to nothing...like a chemical attack. Absolutely no harvest that year...We do not want to plant and lose, so we will build and plant, just gotta go slow enough to afford it and make it last...AND THEN; THERE IS THIS DAMN MOLE DIGGING EVERYWHERE...ShootShoot
 
we are going to cover it with 30 Mil clear vinyl marine grade tarp, we will cover that tarp with 4Mil clear painters tarp, when it gets dirty we will just replace it with a new 4Mil tarp up, cheaper and easier than replacing the 30 Mil.
I got rid of moles by digging into their tunnels and placing rat traps with peanut butter. after digging and placing the traps I covered the hole with a piece of wood and put some dirt over it. Caught a few of them
 
we are going to cover it with 30 Mil clear vinyl marine grade tarp, we will cover that tarp with 4Mil clear painters tarp, when it gets dirty we will just replace it with a new 4Mil tarp up, cheaper and easier than replacing the 30 Mil.
Gary not sure if they sell cattle panels where you are but occasionally when I need a greenhouse these make great portable greenhouses. They can be built inexpensively and moved around my property or even taken apart and stored when not needed. Just a suggestion. If you have a substantial snow load you may want to add a couple middle poles for extra support.

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I’ll look into that. I know vinegar would change the ph but will try to see if will leave anything else in the soil. I’m open for suggestions!
Vinegar is primarily acetic acid and water, and distilled vinegar is just acetic acid and water. Acetic acid is a liquid at room temperature (melting point 61°F) with a boiling point just slightly higher than water. It evaporates - which is why it can be distilled.
Use distilled vinegar if you don't want any permanent residues.
 
Why not use vinegar and water?

If they run underground by rhizomes when you till them you are just chopping up the roots and they make twice as many plants. Those types of weeds are the worst! Instead try smothering them out. Put down some thick cardboard or newspaper and pile some leaves or straw on top to smother them out. Or an old rug or tarps. Just anything that deprives them of sunlight. Or lay clear plastic over them when it starts to warm up in early spring. The clear plastic will heat up what is underneath and kill it. You may have to keep doing it and pull as much as you can too. I had some creeping Jenny that took me almost 3 years to get rid of.
 
If they run underground by rhizomes when you till them you are just chopping up the roots and they make twice as many plants. Those types of weeds are the worst! Instead try smothering them out. Put down some thick cardboard or newspaper and pile some leaves or straw on top to smother them out. Or an old rug or tarps. Just anything that deprives them of sunlight. Or lay clear plastic over them when it starts to warm up in early spring. The clear plastic will heat up what is underneath and kill it. You may have to keep doing it and pull as much as you can too. I had some creeping Jenny that took me almost 3 years to get rid of.
I thought about laying tarps down after mowing. If they were normal weeds I wouldn’t be as concerned but the thorns on these are evil. I like the idea of not using anything in the soil so will start with tarps. I just threw away some old ones at the landfill too. Darn it.
 
I thought about laying tarps down after mowing. If they were normal weeds I wouldn’t be as concerned but the thorns on these are evil. I like the idea of not using anything in the soil so will start with tarps. I just threw away some old ones at the landfill too. Darn it.

Mow them off real low if possible. I get all the cardboard I want from in back of the local Dollar General with the manager's blessings. The worms love the cardboard as well. Tarps are cheap though and I just weight them down with rocks or bricks. Plants/weeds do not grow in the dark deprive them from sun/moisture long enough they die. Period. Old carpet is also good. Know somebody pulling up carpet??
 
Mow them off real low if possible. I get all the cardboard I want from in back of the local Dollar General with the manager's blessings. The worms love the cardboard as well. Tarps are cheap though and I just weight them down with rocks or bricks. Plants/weeds do not grow in the dark deprive them from sun/moisture long enough they die. Period. Old carpet is also good. Know somebody pulling up carpet??
I have some concerns about what kind of chemicals were in the cardboard and even more with the carpet. I was thinking of getting a couple dump loads of the tree mulch from the trimmers here. I figured 4” of wood chips would block the sunlight and it would all break down into compost in time. I probably worry more than I need about chemicals but the main idea for me to grow things is about being as organic as possible. I can buy produce much cheaper than the cost of growing it, considering the labor that goes into it.
 
I thought about laying tarps down after mowing. If they were normal weeds I wouldn’t be as concerned but the thorns on these are evil. I like the idea of not using anything in the soil so will start with tarps. I just threw away some old ones at the landfill too. Darn it.
I have fought wild blackberries here in the city. Our realtor thought they were poison ivy, but I told here no, just wild blackberries. They are growing underneath my privet hedges out front but not all that bad really. From the reading I've done on them, most sources say to use both mechanical removal (digging up small younger shoots) and chemical application.

I can tell you from experience thus far, starving them from light does not kill them. The vines/stems will turn white from lack of light, but they will just keep on running out farther and farther, above or below ground, making new plants. So far I have reduced the quantity of vines out front by remaining watchful and persistent pulling/digging up of shoots as soon as they emerge from the dirt. A compounding problem for us is our house is pier-and-beam up off the ground 2', so the runners creep through the metal vents in the brick skirting and have gone under the house to our side yard! My tact so far is to just pull up by hand any new shoots that emerge into the side garden the minute I see one emerge. So far, that is working pretty well to keep them in check, though not totally eradicated. We can't (or perhaps I should say neither my husband nor I are WILLING to get in that crawl space) & deal with them there. So we'll just keep doing what we are doing.

My late brother had them real bad on his place in Tulalip, WA and used some sort of John Deere brush cutter to get the largest clumps of them under control, but again, he never totally eliminated them. They were kept in check enough you could at least walk the back yard in your bare feet. :)
 
I have fought wild blackberries here in the city. Our realtor thought they were poison ivy, but I told here no, just wild blackberries. They are growing underneath my privet hedges out front but not all that bad really. From the reading I've done on them, most sources say to use both mechanical removal (digging up small younger shoots) and chemical application.

I can tell you from experience thus far, starving them from light does not kill them. The vines/stems will turn white from lack of light, but they will just keep on running out farther and farther, above or below ground, making new plants. So far I have reduced the quantity of vines out front by remaining watchful and persistent pulling/digging up of shoots as soon as they emerge from the dirt. A compounding problem for us is our house is pier-and-beam up off the ground 2', so the runners creep through the metal vents in the brick skirting and have gone under the house to our side yard! My tact so far is to just pull up by hand any new shoots that emerge into the side garden the minute I see one emerge. So far, that is working pretty well to keep them in check, though not totally eradicated. We can't (or perhaps I should say neither my husband nor I are WILLING to get in that crawl space) & deal with them there. So we'll just keep doing what we are doing.

My late brother had them real bad on his place in Tulalip, WA and used some sort of John Deere brush cutter to get the largest clumps of them under control, but again, he never totally eliminated them. They were kept in check enough you could at least walk the back yard in your bare feet. :)

Himalayan blackberries are a real problem in your area and very invasive. In the south we fight kudzu. Both are pretty invasive. I have read of good results on Himalayan blackberries with goats to eat the tops and hogs to root up the roots. But that is in a rural situation.

When I first bought my house I had to fight english ivy that someone thought would look nice running on the brick. It took years of digging, mulching, spraying and pulling. You just have to stay on top of it. There were also huge old quince bushes. I am to this day 6 years later still finding the stray sprout in my lawn. I just keep cutting the tops off and digging the roots out. I maintain that plants have to have sunshine for photosynthesis. If you chop them off enough and smother them enough they will eventually die. Some die quicker than others though. 🙄
 

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