Raspberry Beds and Tending the Soil
The NRF crew plus volunteers have worked in rain or shine to finish our raspberry beds and weed the orchard!
Here are some pictures of us adding some nice, fluffy soil to a 2 ft deep trench that we dug.
Our native soil is very clayey and is prone to flooding, and the berries do not like wet feet!
We dug the clay out and added 8 parts sandy loam, 1 part pine wood chips, and 1 part compost, plus some perlite and cottonseed meal fertilizer to create a soil which is slightly acidic (6 to 6.5 pH) and that will drain better. A 2-feet tall raised bed would also be good for berries.
Then we finally transplanted the raspberry canes! Unfortunately, these berries only produce on their second season of growth, so watch for delicious berries in our 2022 CSA boxes!
Also happening this week: After much welcomed rains, lots of less welcome weeds are being hand pulled and weed wacked from the orchard grounds to make room for our beautiful apricots, pears, persimmons to flourish this summer!
We look forward to having volunteers return here this Saturday for our 4th Saturday’s Monthly Volunteer Day at NRF, where we will be planting more fruit trees and weeding a little more!
