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  • From: Pat Meadows <pat AT meadows.pair.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Re Raspberry varieties
  • Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:08:51 -0400

On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:42:15 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:

>>
>> Anyone in the north have any advice on raspberry varieties? We are near
>> Boston, on the border between zones 5 and 6. We have had bad luck with
>> K81-6, a delicious summer bearer advertised as cold hardy. Not. We also
>> have a row of Lauren, which is hardier, but not great. Prelude does
>> wonderfully here, but the berries are only so-so. (We also grow two fall
>> bearers, Caroline and Polana.) We are looking for a winter-hardy main-crop
>> summer bearer to replace the K81-6. Of course, we are looking for
>> excellent flavor, large coherent berries, and plants that are easy to
>> tend. What do you all grow? (and, to whoever mentioned it, thanks for the
>> tip on cardboard as mulch!)
>>
>So glad to hear someone else got the benefit of cardboard mulch! I'm near
>the Canadian border, Idaho, zone 5, going on 6 with warming and all.
>I lucked into the Best variety. There was a man in our area that had 7
>acres of raspberries in commercial production.

I Googled it; I'm interested too. We are theoretically in Zone 5, but we
usually have Zone 4 winter minimums because of our altitude and particular
topography (we're on the north side of a hill, etc.).

This outfit has them: http://www.ttseeds.com/PDF/08p69.pdf

I never heard of the company before. Oh shoot. They only ship to Canada.
Well, I don't have time to search further at the moment; if anyone finds
these in the USA, please let us know. If I find them later, I'll let the
list know.

We've managed to kill three different sets of raspberries. I think they
drowned in our HEAVY, WET, SOLID CLAY that holds water approximately
forever, and which I swear I could make pottery from - right as it is; no
amendment necessary - beautiful pottery, probably.

Next time, we'll NOT amend the soil. Before, we were digging large holes
and putting good soil in the holes mixed with Pro-mix. Since then, I've
read that this just makes a bowl in the clay and that the roots cannot get
outside the bowl and therefore the plants die.

If anyone has had success planting raspberries in solid, heavy, wet clay,
please let me know what you did. Thanks!

Pat
--
Northern Pennsylvania

CLICK DAILY TO FEED THE HUNGRY
http://www.thehungersite.com/




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