Gardening 21.02
Well, I have to say I am very surprised with how things are progressing.
So, I checked the date that I planted my boysenberry and blackberry plants, it was around the time of the blog post - so, Feb 11.
I was told neither plant would produce fruit until next year, which was fine by me.
Then the boysenberry started getting flowers. I was thinking - well, flowers means fruit, right?
Apparently so -
It is now April 11, a mere 2 months since planting, and my boysenberry not only has about 14 flowers on it, but most of them are now transitioning to green fruits!! It's actually sprawling so much now that I had to get a support for it ahead of schedule - I was hoping it could wait until after we moved at the end of June.
At any rate, here' s the shocking proof - now I'm debating how I want to protect it from fiendish birds - I ordered a cube-shaped net, but I think with the support it might be too small to cover it. Then I was thinking about plastic bags just around the berry portions, but I wonder if birds can get through those? Maybe wrapping tin foil around them? Birds don't like shiny things like that, and I only have to worry about a dozen fruit right now, but I know it's only a matter of time before more berries start coming. I have to say I'm impressed. The blackberry might be starting to come round to the idea of flowers - both these plants are fruiting ahead of their ideal season. Not sure how concerned I need to be about that.
In other news, the mint plant is doing surprisingly well outside - I will need to keep it aggressively watered, but overall, it's doing well. No white flies! Something is eating the leaves but not too aggressively. I like knowing my plants are protected by local insects. Not a day or two after my boysenberry sent out flowers did a crab spider set up shop near one of them waiting for pollinator prey!
Props to the Redwood Barn Nursery. I think I'll go leave them a good Yelp review.
So, I checked the date that I planted my boysenberry and blackberry plants, it was around the time of the blog post - so, Feb 11.
I was told neither plant would produce fruit until next year, which was fine by me.
Then the boysenberry started getting flowers. I was thinking - well, flowers means fruit, right?
Apparently so -
It is now April 11, a mere 2 months since planting, and my boysenberry not only has about 14 flowers on it, but most of them are now transitioning to green fruits!! It's actually sprawling so much now that I had to get a support for it ahead of schedule - I was hoping it could wait until after we moved at the end of June.
At any rate, here' s the shocking proof - now I'm debating how I want to protect it from fiendish birds - I ordered a cube-shaped net, but I think with the support it might be too small to cover it. Then I was thinking about plastic bags just around the berry portions, but I wonder if birds can get through those? Maybe wrapping tin foil around them? Birds don't like shiny things like that, and I only have to worry about a dozen fruit right now, but I know it's only a matter of time before more berries start coming. I have to say I'm impressed. The blackberry might be starting to come round to the idea of flowers - both these plants are fruiting ahead of their ideal season. Not sure how concerned I need to be about that.
In other news, the mint plant is doing surprisingly well outside - I will need to keep it aggressively watered, but overall, it's doing well. No white flies! Something is eating the leaves but not too aggressively. I like knowing my plants are protected by local insects. Not a day or two after my boysenberry sent out flowers did a crab spider set up shop near one of them waiting for pollinator prey!
Props to the Redwood Barn Nursery. I think I'll go leave them a good Yelp review.
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