Garden season retrospective. Part 4 of N

Berry patch retrospective.

it was planted in 2014 from very small root stock, 

They were hit by early snow, some ended up dead

And later it was mulched

later more was added (on sale or plants trade)

Here one can see new transplants in late summer (should have trimmed those and should have not kept as much foliage ...it did not do well transplanted from semi-shade to full sun).

One can see stocky spring transplants and leggy late summer transplants.

 They all made it mostly, well aside of major digging work on site (bare spot on left is where the machinery had to come from and dif a large hole not related to berries at all)

 This is same by the end of 2015

 This is 2016 this summer

So these are all second canes berries.
And by this time patch needs thinning, I'd say the mother plants needed that in spring, but I did nt get to it as we had quite odd weather and maybe I should have. Also I did hold on it because several not thorny berries types were considerably damaged by rabbits. Thorn-less blackberry and boysenberry sustained the most damage, boysenberry was eaten flush to ground.

Also that was they year when we had unusual amount of grashoppers and they did some damage also.

Thinning raspberry is a necessary maintenance for both first year canes type or second year canes type. It goes from

to

One should not leave many canes, all weak and thin canes should go and give room to new first year canes that will become second year canes next year, one would identify second and first year canes easy, first year cane does not fruit, second year cane does.

It it is first year fruiting variety, they are easy, trim all, let it re-grow in spring, trim all late autumn or winter when it's dormant.

All second year canes are cut (ones that had berries) for this type, first year canes are either cut out completely (any weak or too close) and top of the cane is trimmed too at about 3mm from the last bud, no need to leave cane much above the last bud, it will dye off, no need for the palant to wast energy there. Correct top of the cane pruning is important.
How high - it depends. Outer side of the row gets trimmed to about 60cm, inner to about 80cm, or 2 and 3 feet accordingly. If canes look sort of thin - 2 feet or 60cm.

One of easy ways is to set up the patch such that one side of drip line has one year canes, next year switch the sides. It's one of the ways to manage. Another way - second year canes are  'thornier'
 So there was a lot of material taken and put into compost-hugel beds.

When it comes to pest management and fertilizing here are my helpers
We saved this one ad it was nearly run over by a truck on the road, put it into tank, watched a little to be sure it was not run over.

 It was ok, so we made if a toad house near nice rock where there is a lot of bugs (hoppers) , dry creek near by, drip system and it did stick around. Here is toad release spot next year

 I also caught and released into garden every praying mantis I found, into raspberry patch or into garden, When they produced eggs I placed those in raspberry patch. A lot less hoppers


Here is second part of garden helpers.
When we have raid earth warms get washed out on marge driveway

they are collected and set into new bucket

 When they settle I put the stuff into new worm bin, feed it, when they multiply over the winter I release the whole crowd into my berry patch to go do their worm business.
They compost my kitchen waste or bad vegetables that chickens do not get. 0 produce waste and good benefit to my plants and worm castings too.
All my banana peals get nicely worm-composted and any of my bad winter squash does to.