Blueberry, raspberry and blackberry plants (scuba steve) (San Antonio, Anton: movers, house)

[shenane]

Scube Steve
Excellent idea to use the water from the dehumidifier for your plants. Also, my neighbor routed her airconditioning water to her willow tree and other plants. She said they thrived.

How big do those berry plants get? I have a small yard, but I would love to have some fruit baring plants. Are they something I can put close to the house like a shrub? Will they do okay with the shade from the house for part of the day? What are some other small fruit baring plants I could put there?

Thanks!

[scuba steve]

Originally Posted by shenane

Scube Steve
Excellent idea to use the water from the dehumidifier for your plants. Also, my neighbor routed her airconditioning water to her willow tree and other plants. She said they thrived.

How big do those berry plants get? I have a small yard, but I would love to have some fruit baring plants. Are they something I can put close to the house like a shrub? Will they do okay with the shade from the house for part of the day? What are some other small fruit baring plants I could put there?

Thanks!

Good thing I checked the main page before hopping into OT...

The raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries I got are native to the Pacific Northwest. That may seem like a dumb move, but I live in Seattle for the next day or so and bought them a while back.

To answer your questions first - How big do they get?
I'm expecting them to get 3 or 4 feet tall, and plan on trellacing them.

Can I put them close to the house like a shrub?
They won't grow in the ground over there. The soil is too different. More to come in the big post I was writing up...

[CelesteDF]

Originally Posted by shenane

Excellent idea to use the water from the dehumidifier for your plants. Also, my neighbor routed her airconditioning water to her willow tree and other plants. She said they thrived.

If anyone is familiar with rainwater collection systems, you can also hook them up to your A/C and collect the condensation as mentioned above. Simple systems don't have to be expensive or ugly (those plastic barrels are UGLY!). Literally a gutterspout running from your roofline or your A/C unit into a large glazed ceramic pot can be both beautiful and useful - especially during our hot dry summers. I found these amazing rainwater collection jars at Big Grass Bamboo that are not only beautiful, but they have spigots at the bottom to attach a garden hose so you can water your plants/grass directly from the jar. They keep mosquitoes from breeding by putting goldfish in the water to eat larvae and other bugs. Big Grass Bamboo has one demo jar in use at the store... they said they save 300 gallons of water a week just from collecting the A/C condensation! That's equal to 12 ten-minute showers or enough to water a kajillion blackberry and raspberry plants!

[scuba steve]

Originally Posted by sapphire

I'm interested if you care to take it to the Off-Topic thread--I'm sure I'm not the only one that would like to hear about your plants. I'm a total plant-lover, and I'll always take advice from someone who knows what they're talking about.

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.

[scuba steve]

This is what the plants look like today. They're still pretty small but I'll get something out of them this year. The first one is the blueberry plant and the second has both raspberry plants (the ones with leaves) and my blackberry (the one that's just now getting its leaves). I'd take another picture from the back porch here but it's pretty much just trees...

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by CelesteDF

If anyone is familiar with rainwater collection systems, you can also hook them up to your A/C and collect the condensation as mentioned above. Simple systems don't have to be expensive or ugly (those plastic barrels are UGLY!). Literally a gutterspout running from your roofline or your A/C unit into a large glazed ceramic pot can be both beautiful and useful - especially during our hot dry summers. I found these amazing rainwater collection jars at Big Grass Bamboo that are not only beautiful, but they have spigots at the bottom to attach a garden hose so you can water your plants/grass directly from the jar. They keep mosquitoes from breeding by putting goldfish in the water to eat larvae and other bugs. Big Grass Bamboo has one demo jar in use at the store... they said they save 300 gallons of water a week just from collecting the A/C condensation! That's equal to 12 ten-minute showers or enough to water a kajillion blackberry and raspberry plants!

Hmm, we've been using an ugly bucket just because we haven't gotten around to beautifying our exterior much, but I've been thinking about how we could rig up a hose to the pipe. I may have to look into these.

[sapphire]

Originally Posted by scuba steve

This is what the plants look like today. They're still pretty small but I'll get something out of them this year. The first one is the blueberry plant and the second has both raspberry plants (the ones with leaves) and my blackberry (the one that's just now getting its leaves). I'd take another picture from the back porch here but it's pretty much just trees...

Good luck with them here. Those are very nice-looking. I can just picture them wilting under our hot summer sun. My hibiscus were doing great, but they finally had to get moved into the shade last week--it's just too hot for them.

Thanks for all the info, and welcome to San Antonio! You could bring some of that Seattle rain with you, if you'd like. But leave all that suicidal depression there, thankyouverymuch! Have a safe trip!!

[scuba steve]

Thanks... I head out at 9 tomorrow morning. The car is loaded except for the plants and a few small things that I'm afraid will take up more room than I thought. Volvos can hold a ton of stuff though. I'm wishing I was a little better prepared for the movers because this still feels like I'll be cutting it a little close. The moment of truth comes in about an hour.

The blueberry leaves get this kind of waxy coating that should help them out, and the other leaves do toughen up too. All the green stuff grew out over the last 4 weeks or so and it's still really new. That cover behind the house should keep everything safe I hope. This really is the worst time of year to move out because it'll be more or less perfect every day (partly cloudy to sunny / 75 in the afternoon) through September.

[clbz]

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!)

[SnappyBob]

Originally Posted by CelesteDF

If anyone is familiar with rainwater collection systems, you can also hook them up to your A/C and collect the condensation as mentioned above. Simple systems don't have to be expensive or ugly (those plastic barrels are UGLY!). Literally a gutterspout running from your roofline or your A/C unit into a large glazed ceramic pot can be both beautiful and useful - especially during our hot dry summers. I found these amazing rainwater collection jars at Big Grass Bamboo that are not only beautiful, but they have spigots at the bottom to attach a garden hose so you can water your plants/grass directly from the jar. They keep mosquitoes from breeding by putting goldfish in the water to eat larvae and other bugs. Big Grass Bamboo has one demo jar in use at the store... they said they save 300 gallons of water a week just from collecting the A/C condensation! That's equal to 12 ten-minute showers or enough to water a kajillion blackberry and raspberry plants!

Rainwater collection jar from Big Grass Bamboo $950. Those plastic barrells are starting to look mighty attractive.