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Scuba~ I happened upon your raspberries thread from May 2008. I moved from the SW coast of WA and miss raspberry freezer jam. So, am planting raspberries Monday. If your raspberries thrived, would you share your methods? (forgot to say I'm in the NW corner of San Antonio ... and I do NOT know how to blog or post; hope I can find this stuff again!)
Where'd you get your raspberries? I had a hard time getting the ones I brought from the northwest to really produce a lot. They're all alive and happy in the HUGE pots I bought and filled with peat moss and sand (local SA dirt is to alkaline), but they don't exactly make a lot of anything but more leaves. I've gotten a few but not exactly a whole lot. BUT I bought all of them at the Lowes in Renton so they're Washington and Oregon varieties. I think the reason they aren't very productive is because it doesn't stay cold for an extended period of time in SA so they don't really go completely dormant in winter.
The blueberries and blackberries I bought at the Lowes in San Antonio have done MUCH better since they're all southern types and don't seem to need to be cold in winter. I planted all of them the same way - in the biggest pot I could find with mostly peat and sand with gravel at the bottom and a few small holes drilled for drainage. I never could find raspberries for sale there so I'm curious where you found yours.
For what it's worth they really seem to like coffee grounds and we make a lot of coffee at work so there's no shortage of that. Can't say how much anything has produced so far because the first year they were still new (got maybe a quart of blackberries, a quart of blueberries, handful of raspberries) and the second year I was out of town in spring and my wife didn't cover the plants with netting so birds and squirrels ate nearly everything.
Hi Steve,
I also live in SA and I have blackberries growing, I planted them this past Dec. when spring hit they took off. They looked great until we got this horrible heat. Now they look as if they want to die. They are in the ground and the sun hits them hard. I don't know what to do for them. Our house is new 2 years old and we do not have that much shade.I'm thinking of putting up some shade for them. Suggestions would be appreciated,
thanks Picturelady
Quote:
Originally Posted by scuba steve
Ok... here goes. I like the Northwest and plan on taking a bit of it with me after the move. We have non-native blackberries growing all over the place and they taste good, but I wanted something else and got some plants this year before finding out about the move to Texas. I don't want to give them away so I had to learn how to make them survive over there. It really requires an understanding of how to grow the things here, the differences in the soil and weather over there, and how to make up for the differences.
Blackberries and raspberries - grow in canes that when left alone kind of make a big thorny bush. There are tons of varieties out there. Blueberries on the other hand aren't thorny and just grow in a regular bush.
The Soil
The soil in the northwest is somewhat acidic - the PH is around 6 from what I've been told. Over in central Texas there's a ton of limestone that raises the PH to around 8. The rasp/black/blueberry plants prefer well-drained soil but in San Antonio there's a lot of clay to deal with. You can't just put them in the ground or they won't last long. I'm going with one 10 (maybe 20) gallon container per plant, and planting them with a sandy / peat mix. They do best in that kind of soil here anyway. To go along with that I'm using the soil from over here they were planted in to begin with.
The WaterI actually measured the tap water in San Antonio with an aquarium tester and it was supposedly over 8. This is WAY too high to water the plants with because it'll change the soil PH in a container before too long. So to keep raspberry, blackberry or blueberry plants suited to the northwest alive you'll need to collect rainwater or condensation from something. They'll probably need plenty of it too, but don't like too much hanging around. This + the container part will have probably scared nearly everyone away already but wait, there's more...
The Weather
There are two things to deal with here - the hot and the cold. In particular, the raspberry plants don't really like to get hot so I'm adding 3-4 inches of mulch per container. I forgot which type... gotta look that up again. All of these plants enjoy sunlight but since it'll be more intense over in Texas I plan on keeping the containers in a semi-shaded area near the house. I'll have to take a picture after the move.
The cold. Why is this a problem; it snows in the northwest in winter? The problem is, when it gets cold in winter here it stays cold, but in central Texas the winter temperature bounces around a lot, and then a cold front comes in and it freezes again. This would fool the plants into coming out of dormancy only to be damaged by a freeze. My solution to this problem is to keep the plants closer to the house where I'm hoping they'll stay slightly warmer, and to cover them up during wintertime freezes so they won't get damaged.
Other stuff
Fertilizer for azaleas is best for all three kinds of plants, and I may also use Miracid and Ironite as needed.
I've seen raspberries and blackberries grow up to 7 feet tall over here, but I don't think they'll get that big in San Antonio. Canes should be cut back after 1 year because they will no longer produce fruit. Blueberry bushes can get pretty big too - maybe around 5 feet or so but I also doubt these will get that large or else I'll have to study up on how to prune them.
It'll be a lot of work but should be totally worth it later this summer when they start making fruit. I'll have to take pictures of how all this comes out once I get over there in a week or two.
Ok... here goes. I like the Northwest and plan on taking a bit of it with me after the move. We have non-native blackberries growing all over the place and they taste good, but I wanted something else and got some plants this year before finding out about the move to Texas. I don't want to give them away so I had to learn how to make them survive over there. It really requires an understanding of how to grow the things here, the differences in the soil and weather over there, and how to make up for the differences.
Blackberries and raspberries - grow in canes that when left alone kind of make a big thorny bush. There are tons of varieties out there. Blueberries on the other hand aren't thorny and just grow in a regular bush.
The Soil
The soil in the northwest is somewhat acidic - the PH is around 6 from what I've been told. Over in central Texas there's a ton of limestone that raises the PH to around 8. The rasp/black/blueberry plants prefer well-drained soil but in San Antonio there's a lot of clay to deal with. You can't just put them in the ground or they won't last long. I'm going with one 10 (maybe 20) gallon container per plant, and planting them with a sandy / peat mix. They do best in that kind of soil here anyway. To go along with that I'm using the soil from over here they were planted in to begin with.
The WaterI actually measured the tap water in San Antonio with an aquarium tester and it was supposedly over 8. This is WAY too high to water the plants with because it'll change the soil PH in a container before too long. So to keep raspberry, blackberry or blueberry plants suited to the northwest alive you'll need to collect rainwater or condensation from something. They'll probably need plenty of it too, but don't like too much hanging around. This + the container part will have probably scared nearly everyone away already but wait, there's more...
The Weather
There are two things to deal with here - the hot and the cold. In particular, the raspberry plants don't really like to get hot so I'm adding 3-4 inches of mulch per container. I forgot which type... gotta look that up again. All of these plants enjoy sunlight but since it'll be more intense over in Texas I plan on keeping the containers in a semi-shaded area near the house. I'll have to take a picture after the move.
The cold. Why is this a problem; it snows in the northwest in winter? The problem is, when it gets cold in winter here it stays cold, but in central Texas the winter temperature bounces around a lot, and then a cold front comes in and it freezes again. This would fool the plants into coming out of dormancy only to be damaged by a freeze. My solution to this problem is to keep the plants closer to the house where I'm hoping they'll stay slightly warmer, and to cover them up during wintertime freezes so they won't get damaged.
Other stuff
Fertilizer for azaleas is best for all three kinds of plants, and I may also use Miracid and Ironite as needed.
I've seen raspberries and blackberries grow up to 7 feet tall over here, but I don't think they'll get that big in San Antonio. Canes should be cut back after 1 year because they will no longer produce fruit. Blueberry bushes can get pretty big too - maybe around 5 feet or so but I also doubt these will get that large or else I'll have to study up on how to prune them.
It'll be a lot of work but should be totally worth it later this summer when they start making fruit. I'll have to take pictures of how all this comes out once I get over there in a week or two.
I stumbled back on this thread because I was curious how the in-laws part of SA was doing... For anybody who resurrects this years from now, I moved out of the city a while back.
Reverse osmisis, I'm not sure about what the PH would come out but if it still has calcium carbonate in it the PH will stay high.
I kept my blackberries in huge pots under some live oak trees in the back yard. It's easier to control PH and soil conditions that way vs. in the ground In full sun they'll probably die because it's just too hot. Easily a full 10-15 degrees hotter than in the southeast where the plants were cultivated from, assuming they're the kind from a big box store. They did great there and grew almost too big to move when it was time to load everything up and move out. Get them some shade, and soil that drains well.
Omigosh, Scuba Steve.
Okay, NOW I remember why I knew that name! Raspberries! Or, rather: raspberries
Yeah, sorry my info is so outdated. I really don't know how to blog nor do I remember to check for answers. But today I found a note of yours about where to get an alternator rebuilt and now here I am on raspberries. I bought my 6 raspberrie starts at a nursery in south San Antonio called Fanick's (Fanick Garden Center - San Antonio Nursery and Garden Center). Bought 5 blueberries at the same time. The day I planted 'em, I got news of impending hard frost. So I covered 'em each with a bucket and burlap. Only the blueberries survived 'til Spring. I planted everything in ground with a mix of sandy soil and LOTS of peat moss in an area that gets sun from 10 am to 2:30pm. They got a cup of used coffee grounds each every other week or so and I used azalea fertilizer. But, meh, they've only limped along. And then I was gone traveling and had left them dependent on lines of bubblers only to find one of the lines popped off when I returned in August. Soooo, I've got about 1.5 blueberry "bushes" left. Rats. On the up side, the Red Baron peach tree (in ground) we got from Fanick's is going great guns, branch-, height-, & leaf-wise, but we've yet to get a peach. And I could swear it was self-pollinating. My persimmon tree (in ground) has lots this year (also from Fanick's). And my lemon tree (in pot) from the Garden Center on Bandera near-ish loop 1604 is so loaded it's breaking branches; gotta thin. As a transplanted Washingtonian, it's been fun growing things I'd never attempt in the southwest corner of Washington; but I dearly miss fresh raspberries. And strawberries, too (another failure for me in San Antonio). The ones in the produce section here are built more for durability during transport, not flavor. Since when does one slice a strawberry & have it feel and sound like you're slicing an apple??!
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