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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Gooseberries for TN?

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  • From: "Kieran &/or Donna" <holycow@frontiernet.net>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Gooseberries for TN?
  • Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 12:03:59 -0500

Bill,
I don't have to go out and plant sweet cherries to keep the birds away from gooseberries, they are already there. In fact, I was planning on planting the gooseberries under them. Sounds like the only problem will be the bird poop on the gooseberries. I'd wanted for years to plant the little soft squishy Russian style mulberries near the cherries to protect them from birds, but the cherry trees are about too big to reach anymore, and the NW slope they are on seems to ensure they freeze out most springs. So looks like I'm doing it at all wrong, but at least they should enable me to grow gooseberries without too much bird predation. Jap beetles are too busy out in the sunshine on the roses and smartweed to go looking for gooseberries in the shade.
As for birds eating gooseberry buds, I think this must be the same phenomenon as the bullfinches eating fruit buds in winter in Europe. The subject came up as happening here in the US on this list, but I don't remember what kind of birds were doing it. I suspect that your place or your town stands out to the birds as an oasis of trees surrounded by grass? Whereas our place barely looks like a break in the forest.
Blueberries have proved to be extremely easy for me to grow, given our very acid soil and my willingness to haul them a few buckets of water when I can spare it. Even the little ones planted at the beginning of the 2005 drought all survived except for the ones that came in peat plugs. Yes, beware, only order bareroot if you have clay soil. And you'll have to add sulfur every year, but that part's easy. I heard from a friend that Dr. Huey rose rootstock, which hates acid clay soil and barely grows here, does extremely well in Nebraska. so you may have to work a bit to produce the right conditions for blueberries. Donna






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