Blackberrys Planted - Apache and Araphao
Sunday, May 6th, 2007Today I planted my Apache and Arapaho Erect blackberry cells from Stark Bros (3 of each).
There are both thornless varieties, and with any luck I will get an extended harvest from having two different breeds. I have planted them in a row of 6, with about 2 feet between each seedling, in the front garden by the approach to my door. This is not the sunniest place I have available, but I am hoping it gets enough sunlight to keep these guys healthy.
The Apache, in the foreground in this image, are looking very healthy, lots of nice green looking leaves, at the time of planting.
In this image, with the Arapaho in the foreground, you can see they are a lot smaller. All three of them had some yellow leaves that were nearly dead which I removed (hopefully that was a good idea!)
When I was digging the holes for this I was pleased to come across Earthworms in most of them. I haven’t done anything to this soil myself , but the landscape firm my subdivision uses does mulch it every year. While it was some rather heavy clay under the mulch, at least it is fertile enough supporting the basic soil critters.
My long term hope is here is that blackberries will fill in to make somewhat of a hedge, roughly 10 feet long. I’m not entirely sure that the landscapers won’t interfere with this (assuming I can keep them alive!), but I have my fingers crossed.
You will notice the mysterious grass the landscapers have planted, scattered around my planting area. I am going to leave them there for now, but if the look to be taking over I will remove them.
