alleycat

So I've been working on making myself a plot with my raspberry plants in part of my garden outside.

This is gonna be the 3rd year since I planted three, 2 year old plants. This year they are spreading more than the 2 previous years together.

In this picture you can see the stalks that grew last year and produced raspberries. All the smaller plants you also see coming up now will be like the tall stalks by the end of this year. And you can't see half of the very small ones that are just busting thru the soil.



I want to give them a plot of 6ft by 6ft to continue to grow in. Since most of the new sprouts happened to of come up in part of my strawberry patch, I've decided to let the raspberries have it, and move the strawberries from that area.

You can see the mix of raspberries and strawberries in this picture. On the right side of the stick will be raspberries and the left side will be strawberries. You can see the pointy raspberry leafs vs the rounder strawberry leafs. Still working my way across the whole garden to weed everything, and since doing some remodeling decided to wait for some areas until the rearraging of plants is done.



You can see what I"ve come up with so far to keep them from spreading any further into the garden. The roots seem to not run any deeper than 12 inchs, and most are alot shallower(sp) than that.

I know the wood will eventually rot, but if I do decide to go with the wood, I figure I'll bury the wood just a little bit, or close to ground level, and in the corners put some 2x4's that I can screw both pieces of plywood together, and then make the 2x4's tall enough so I can know where the corners are of the buried plywood. It's good mixed soil to about 12 inches deep, and then hard clay to dig thru.



A little closer up of the trench with plywood in it.



So that's what I did this morning before it started to rain some. Very little rain, but was a great excuse to stop working on it.

I can't imagine wood will last that long, so looking for other suggestions on what to use in place of it? I like the size of the plywood for thickness. I thought about cement blocks, but that would be twice to three times as much digging. Even the skinnier ones, but maybe there's some I'm not familar with.

Anybody ever done this before?? Is the 13 inches that my boards are gonna be enough to stop the roots from spreading?? These roots seem to run about twice as deep as wild growing raspberries(made a zone for them at mom and dads years ago), but not 100% sure how deep these ones are running. I didn't dig any deeper to see if I still see roots at the deeper level.

I'm just using a skinny, but long spade shovel. Anybody got any ideas what would make digging the trenches I have left any easier??

I did clean out my 75 gallon oscar tank the other day, well over 2 days it took me. The rocks on the bottom weren't cleaned at all during the whole last winter, so they were full of fish chit. I suctioned out all the fish chit into buckets, with water too, but was so thick the water was super dark black. I watered my outside plants, including these raspberries with the fish tank waste water and saw them perk up and get a darker green to them the next day. Did wonders on my strawberries, garlic, aspargus, and rose bushes too. Got mom hooked on the 5-1-1 fish chit too for her house plants. She was bragging about what it was doing for her the other day with blooming christmas cactus's.

I have another fish tank that needs the rocks cleaned too. Once I get my borders in and getting ready to plant the part of the garden that has to be planted every year, I'm gonna water with that tanks waste water, and then figured I'll rototill that part for the 4th time this year already, but should be the last time, and everything good to go. I also use egg shells, coffee grounds, fish heads and guts that I've been grinding up into the garden. I mostly use Floramato for nutrients for my vegetable garden too.

Thanks for any and all help.

Happy Growing

[b]Alleycat

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buzzmobile

Check out Root Barriers on Google. We used to specify Biobarrier Root Barrier when I was designing landscapes. I believe that would do the trick. Renting a trencher would be the easiest method to install it.

420oclock

When I planted several varieties of mint, I was worried about it spreading. I cut the bottom out of a 5 gallon bucket, then buried it. The mint was contained by the bucket. That isn't really applicable here, but buzzmobile's idea sounds great.

http://www.biobarrier.com/

alleycat

420oclock--Thanks for that specific info. I happen to be working on a friends garden that has been over run with mint. That's a great idea for them to be able to keep growing some.

Buzz--Cool, never heard of a root barrier. Used weed barriers before and wasn't impressed with them at all, so wasn't even gonna try it, but didn't know there was root barrier too. For how much I'd love to run a trencher, for the amount that's left it wouldn't prove worth it, plus it'd mess up plants running over them. But maybe there's a stihl trencher or someone like that who happens to make a smaller sized one. Guess it would prove worth while stopping at the rental store.

Happy Growing

Alleycat

frmrbobbo

looks like a good pick/ax would get you deep enough..??

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