Farmers Weekly Review

We will be heading into watermelon season (locally grown) soon. But June and July belong to the berry season!
There is nothing so bursting with flavor as home-grown fresh berries from your own garden. But as harvest of berry season winds down, there are important tasks gardeners need to do to assure their next year harvest will be even better.
The goal of mid-summer small fruit maintenance is threefold: remove old, worn-out parts of the plant that will not produce again; keep weeds (or should I say, get weeds) under control; and continue good cultural practices — check for pests and irrigate when necessary to keep these future berry producers as vibrant, as they are storing food for next year’s delicious crops.
That all sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well, we have lots of berries, all with different mid-season needs based on their species and within the species, their variety. Think of it like knowing which relative you want to bring which dish to the family reunion. Yes, to Aunt Edna’s potato salad, but no to her baking. That is reserved for Uncle Ed.
Your plants are the same, you just need to know them. So, our most common berry family members are raspberries and other brambles, strawberries and sometimes blueberries. Blueberries’ need for acidic soil makes them tough to grow in most of our Will County gardens, because our pH is too high, hovering around 7.0. Blueberries are acid-loving plants, and we do have pockets where they do just fine. For most of us, container blueberries are the most successful where we can control the soil pH more easily.
Strawberries fall into three categories: June bearing, everbearing or day neutral. June bearing are the ones that produce a heavy concentrated crop in … you guessed it, mid-June. These are the varieties that need summer maintenance.
Once the crop is finished, it is time to thin the June bearing strawberries. That is something to do now. This is different from cutting off the runners (the daughter plants of the original mothers). But you can use the thinnings or the runners to rejuvenate your beds, to start a new patch, or better yet, why not share your strawberries with another gardener who would like to try their hand at small fruit.
Raspberries, too, have different varieties that are produced at different times, but this part of the summer process applies to all raspberries — red, black, and purple. Once the fruiting canes from this year have finished their final harvest, prune them off as soon as possible at ground level.
And just like when you remove any plant parts, get them away from the remaining plant. Don’t drop them below the new growing canes. Leaving old plant residue there is like inviting all the pests and diseases of your fruit plant to visit and infest your future canes. Remove them from the area. Cut off or pinch out the shoot tips of black and purple canes to encourage lateral bud growth. This will provide more fruiting next year. But stop pinching raspberry canes at the end of July, as any new laterals that develop in August would be thin and scrawny.
After doing this midsummer pruning, pinching and replanting, turn your attention to weed control. Particularly in those thorny brambles, it is like putting your catnip-doused arm in a box of kittens — scratches everywhere. The best and easiest control for weeds in any berry patch is mulching.
Ideally, a nice early spring 2wo-inch mulch will stop weed seeds from germinating and make any perennial weeds that have taken root easy to pull. Besides being a nuisance, remember that weeds are Olympians compared to our desirable plants. They survive on little water and nutrients and steal what there is from our cultivated plants. Weeds in the berry patch can also harbor pests.
And sometimes the weeds themselves are our enemies. One of the worst situations I had a call on was someone who asked me if they could be allergic to their raspberries? Of course, anyone can be or become allergic to anything, but this seemed unusual as this patch had been worked for years, and only now was there this severe reaction. I had the homeowner take a picture.
First, they sent me a picture of their arm (OK, so I should have been more specific). And before I asked for the photo of the raspberries, I knew what the problem was. This client was covered in raspberry scratches — AND poison ivy!
The solution was prickly, too. He decided to mow the whole patch, berries, poison ivy and all. But I suggested he first, gingerly cut and brush the thick woody poison ivy vines with trichlopyr, to kill them back to the root. Otherwise, he would just be pruning it to come back stronger the following year.
The recommendation worked. The great thing about trichlopyr is it kills the root, too, and all but does not translocate (move) to other plants nearby. So, the raspberries came out of the itchy mess just fine, and the poison ivy was gone.
The final midsummer berry tasks include watering during dry spells to encourage new growth that will bear the new berries next spring, and the usual monitoring for pests and disease.
Anything out of the ordinary, you know who to call. Now go enjoy some raspberry cobbler and a nice, iced tea; then get to work on those berries.