Moxie Gardener

Anti-oxident-rich black raspberries can produce fruit for many years in your urban garden.

Studies have shown that dark colored berries contain very high levels of anti-oxidents, which are believed to help prevent cancer and heart disease. Black raspberries are particularly high in these anti-oxidents.

They’re sweeter and taste better than red raspberries, too.

Unfortunately, they’re more prone to all of the diseases that affect raspberries and other bramble-type fruit.

Don’t let that deter you from growing black raspberries in your urban garden. They are rarely, if ever, available for sale at supermarkets or even farmer’s markets. Growing your own is perhaps the only way you’ll get your hands on them.

Prepare the soil before planting in early spring. Add large amounts of well-rotted manure, compost and peat moss. Get your soil tested and add amendments to bring the pH down to a range between 5.6 to 6.2. Spread 25 lbs. of 10-10-10 garden fertilizer per 1,000 square feet of planting bed. Cultivate the soil well to break up any large clods of soil.

To guard against the spread of diseases from their more vigorous red cousins, plant black raspberries at least 300 feet away from red raspberries.

Plant black raspberry crowns four feet apart in rows 8 to 12 feet apart. (For urban gardens the smaller spacing is best; plant them 12 or more feet apart only if you will use a tractor to cultivate between the rows.)

Install a 4 foot high wooden stake next to each plant. Run a thick wire down the row, attaching it to each stake. The fruiting branches of each cane will be spread along the wire and secured with twine when they appear later in summer.

Mulch well between the rows and around individual plants. Spread and maintain a 3 to 4 inch layer of organic mulch such as wood chips, shredded bark, pine needles, or rotted leaf mulch. Hand pull weeds to reduce competition for water and nutrients and reduce the possibility of disease.

Provide your black raspberry patch with the equivalent of 1 to 2 inches of water per week. Never use an overhead sprinkler, it could help spread diseases; use a soaker hose instead.

Fertilize each year by applying 20 lbs. of 10-10-10 fertilizer (or an organic equivalent) per 1,000 square feet of planting bed. Split the application by applying half of this amount in mid-April and the second half in late May to early June.

Maintain the base of each row at a width of 12 to 18 inches and remove any suckers that grow outside this range. This helps bring light and air into the row, resulting in increased yields and healthier black raspberries.

Cut off the tips of new shoots in early summer when they reach a height of about 30 inches. These canes will send out lateral branches near the end of summer, which are fastened to the wire running the length of the row. These lateral branches will in turn send out small branches the following year on which the berries will form.

In early spring prune the lateral branches that formed at the end of the previous summer. Cut each off so that there are two buds per branch on thin diameter canes and up to six on stout lateral canes.

Also remove any main canes—those which are growing vertically out of the ground—that are less than 1/2 inch in diameter. Each healthy plant should have 2 to 5 canes that are over 1/2 inch in diameter. If all the canes are smaller than this, cut out all except the largest ones.

After the canes fruit in mid to late summer, they die. Remove them soon after harvest to control disease. Cut them off close to the ground. Also thin new shoots at this time and leave only 3 or 4 of the sturdiest ones per foot of row. These will form lateral branches that will bear fruit the following summer.

Remove all pruned materials and destroy them by burning or by putting in the trash. This will help stop the spread of the many diseases that raspberries are susceptible to. They also suffer from the same diseases that affect roses, to which they are related.

A raspberry planting that is properly maintained by mulching, watering, pruning and fertilizing will bear fruit for twenty years or more.

That’s a lot of anti-oxidents.

A rhubarb plant growing in the neighborhood. This plant is so large that it caught my eye as I drove by. The gardener was kind enough to let me pick some and invited me to return for more.

For most of recorded history, rhubarb was only used medicinally. Native to China, it is thought that Marco Polo brought rhubarb back from his travels there.

Rheum rhabarbarum wasn’t used as a food source until the late 1700’s. Its first recorded mention is as a pie plant.

Rhubarb was planted extensively by pioneers in the United States and descendants of many of those original plantings survive in our northern cities today.

Hardy in USDA Zones 3 to 8, rhubarb grows 2 to 3 feet tall, depending on the variety. It needs temperatures below 40 degrees to break its winter dormancy and begin new growth in spring.

Plant rhubarb in full sun in rich garden soil. Space the plants 3 to 4 feet apart in rows 3 feeet apart. The plants will grow smaller and be less productive if planted closer together. Place the crown about 2 inches below the surface of the soil. Water well.

Provide newly transplanted rhubarb with water for its first year in your garden, thereafter it will withstand drought fairly well.

Don’t harvest rhubarb the first year you plant it. Like asparagus, it needs to put all its energy the first year into building a strong root system.

Harvest sparingly the second year. Only harvest stalks that are at least an inch thick. During its third year, harvest for about a month in spring. Thereafter, harvest stalks as they mature for the entire rhubarb season, which runs for about six weeks from the time the first stalks are ready to harvest in early spring.

Cut the stalks at the soil line or grasp a stalk near the surface of the soil and twist it away from the crown.

Rhubarb is known as the pie plant; it is primarily used as a fruit in pies, crisps, compotes, and jams. Made into a smooth sauce, it is also a good companion for seafood.

One of my earliest childhood memories is of picking a stalk of rhubarb fresh from the garden, dipping it into sugar, and eating it raw. Of course, that was before scientists discovered that sugar was bad for you.

I practice selective amnesia when it comes to such discoveries.

Cranberries can be grown by home gardeners.

Cranberries grow on small, evergreen shrubs and are sometimes called the “Rubies of the Pines.” Vaccinium macrocarpon is what the botanists call them.  Native American Indians consider cranberries a symbol of peace.

Native to North America and grown only on this continent, cranberries can be found growing on the East Coast from Newfoundland south to North Carolina and west to Minnesota.  Cranberries grow best in Zones 2 to 5.

Cranberries are for the most part grown commercially, but by providing the right conditions, the home gardener can successfully grow them, too.  Cranberries spread by “runners” and make a good ground cover.

Plant one year old transplants in spring or fall.  Space the plants about two feet apart in each direction.  Cranberries like sandy, acidic soils with good drainage and with lots of peat moss added.  They like damp soil, but do not like to sit in water during the growing season, so good drainage is essential.

Add a 2 to 3 inch layer of sand to the top of the soil every other year.  This will increase the vigor of the cranberries and increase yield.  Cover cranberry bushes with a pine needle mulch in winter.  Uncover around April 1st, but continue to protect the tender shoots from frosts and freezes into mid May.

One year old plants will flower and produce fruit after three years in your garden.  Harvest berries by hand from late September to late October.  Berries will suffer damage if exposed to temperatures below 30 degrees F.  It is not necessary to flood your cranberry patch.  Commercial operations flood their fields for easy harvesting.

After three years of fruit production, prune your cranberry patch by cutting away shoots, trimming runners and generally straightening up the bed.  Your cranberry patch will reward you by producing more berries.

Cranberries produce their own preservative, benzoic acid, and will keep several months packed in water in barrels or other breathable containers.

And then of course, there’s Thanksgiving….

Crab apple tree on public boulevard in my neighborhood

With their stunning buds and flowers, the interesting shapes of their growth patterns, fall leaf colors and fruit that matures in fall but oftentimes persists through winter, crab apples have been called the “jewel of the landscape.” 

Crab apples are planted in parks, on boulevards and in many other public places, as well as urban and suburban yards all over the world.  Their flamboyant display of spring blooms is often the reason.  The flowers bud out before the leaves unfurl, creating a jewel-like display on the branches.  The flowers then open, most often a different color than the buds, adding another dimension to the display.  Finally the leaves arrive, their delicate spring green contrasting nicely with the white, delicate pink, or even deep red flowers.

Crab apples can grow from 8 to 40 feet high, with most varieties averaging 15 to 25 feet in height.  Their growth habit varies with the variety but usually take one of the following shapes:  weeping (pendulous), rounded, spreading (horizontal), upright (columnar), vase-shaped, or pyramidal.  Coupled with their range of flower and fruit colors, a crab apple variety can be found to suit most any landscaping need.

With proper drainage crab apples are adaptable to any soil conditions, but they thrive in loam.  They are reliably hardy through Zone 4.  Crab apples are excellent pollinators for regular apple trees and branches of crab apples are sometimes grafted onto a standard eating apple for pollination purposes.

Plant balled and burlaped (B & B) or container potted crab apple trees in fall.  Plant bare root specimens in spring only.  Crab apples require little care except watering and a little fertilizer until midsummer.  Prune crab apples only to remove water sprouts (vigorous growth from branches), suckers (vigorous growth from roots), dead, diseased, damaged or crossing branches.  Prune in early June; pruning later in the year will reduce the number of flowers and fruits the following year.

Crab apples are crab apples if their fruit is 2 inches or less in diameter.  On many varieties the fruit stays on the trees until well into winter, with some varieties holding onto its fruit into the following spring and summer.  The fruit of crab apples can range in color from dark-reddish purple through reds, oranges, golden yellows, even a few green varieties.

The larger varieties can be spiced and canned or made into crab apple jelly or wine.  That’s an addition to the landscape worth its weight in gold.