Do you love the taste of fresh berries? There's nothing quite like the taste of fresh strawberry jam or grape jelly on toast. Unfortunately, buying fresh berry products can be expensive. However, growing enough berries to meet your needs is fairly easy and affordable. In many cases, you can grow a wide variety of berries in as little as five square feet of garden space.
Soil and Climate Concerns
For the most part, berry plants require acidic soil. Get a simple soil pH test kit from any lawn and garden store to check whether your soil is acidic or basic - and add Miracid fertilizer or tea bags to the soil around the plants to make your soil more acidic. If you make your own compost and apply it to your garden, you'll be adding most of the nutrients that your berry plants need. Luckily raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries all tend to tolerate a wide range of climates, so you should be able to grow them no matter how far north you are.
Selecting Plants
Depending on where you live, you may be able to find wild berry plants growing on the side of the road or at the edge of a field. If you have wild berry plants around your yard, watch the plants closely during the late summer and fall. This is usually the time when berry plants will make small plants, or suckers, that will take root in the surrounding soil. If you dig these suckers up and plant them in your garden, they'll bloom into healthy plants the following year.
If you don't have access to wild specimens, you can purchase all different types of nursery stock at your local garden store, and even in many department and food stores. Typically, berry plants are widely available during the early spring months. If you decide to purchase these plants, it's important to make sure that there's no sign of infection or rot on the stems and roots. It's also best to buy plants that don't already have developed leaves, as they may not survive the transplant process.
Organic Pest Control
When it comes to berries, the most common pests you'll encounter are birds. In order to protect your berry garden, it's best to enclose them in a fence or net. If you place all your berry plants in one area, you can easily fence them off and put a net over them for protection. As you might expect, the net needs to be high enough so that birds can't reach through to the berries nearest the net. If you love to have birds around and don't want to permanently scare them off, you may also want to place a few berry bushes in other parts of the yard for them to feed on.
Every year, commercial farms produce millions of pounds of berries. While you may savor the taste of many kinds of fresh berries and jams, the price of these products may be outside of your budget. Growing your own berries also gives you access to affordable fresh fruit that hasn't been exposed to pesticides - so you can be healthy and save money.
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