Late Tuesday afternoon, the UPS truck pulled into our driveway and delivered 2 huge boxes of dormant blackberry plants. After reading every article, website posting and advertisement and re-reading the Mid-Atlantic Berry Guide all winter long, we had finally decided to start off with the Apache variety.
We had already planted Arapaho, Navaho, Hull and Chester (we think) varieties in our previous backyard, but decided we needed to expand – which is how our farming adventure got started. This is our first spring at the new farm and we have been clearing trees and fence rows all winter long. Jeff had been working on what will be our first acre of blackberries for weeks – marking off the rows, sinking the end posts for the trellis wires, figuring out fertilizer needs. So planting brambles is our first order of business, to be followed by replanting vidal blanc and chancellor grape vines that we left behind at our old house.
So this week we officially started to plant the 600 brambles. By Thursday evening we had finished about 100 plants, with Jeff drilling the hole with a hand held (gas motor driven) auger, Tina putting in the plants, and Lars putting the drip emitters into the irrigation line. Then thunderstorms moved in and we did not get any further. The remaining – dormant – plants are sitting in large plastic bins covered with moist peat moss and we are hoping for dry and warmer weather for this weekend.
