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June 8th, 2010 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

I am planting a garden with fruit and vegitables?

I am planting a garden with Blackberries, blue berries, raspberries, and strawberries. I will also be planting onions and garlic and in topsy turves's tomato's and peppers. I have an L shaped garden which is 8 feet long on one side and about 15 feet long on the other side. Does anyone have a suggestion on how I should proceed in planting all of these plants.

Your blackberries and your raspberries are fruiting canes with sharp thorns. They will multiply wherever you plant them, so put them at the far edges of your garden, 1 row wide, stake them along a fence for support and tie the canes to that as they grow up. Don't plant them next to each other. The blueberries are bushes and will take up a lot of room when they are full grown. They need soil that is not too dry, so find an open area where you will be satisfied to have them live longer than you own your property. The deer will eat the bushes, so if you have wild deer, be sure to fence the small plants off with wire cages until they grow larger. You won't be getting any blueberries until they are more established (in a few years).

Your strawberry plants will also multiply and spread, but the older plants will die off. You should pick off the blossoms the first year after you plant them, so that the plants can become stronger. Plant them in rows with enough space to walk between, and space for an inner row between the two rows. As they send out runners with new little plants at the ends, you can guide these baby plants to root in the inside, unplanted space. Put some straw down after the green berries start to form, beneath the leaves, so the berries are kept from resting on the earth.

The garlic will take a whole year from planting to maturity. Plant the garlic cloves in a row in the early spring or in the fall, and harvest the mature bulbs the following year. Onions are usually planted as "sets" (baby onions) and you can plant them right now. They will be ready to eat as spring green onions as soon as you think they are big enough, but in order to store them for eating in the fall and winter, wait until they are fully mature and the tops have died back. Do not leave them in the ground once the tops have died, because they will quickly rot if you do.

Your tomatoes and peppers should go in the sunniest, best drained open area that you have. The tomatoes will need staking, but the peppers might not, unless you get a bumper crop of very large peppers. Plant the peppers in a square formation, about a foot to 15" apart, with each plant in its own square on a large grid, like this:

pepper pepper pepper pepper

You can plant your tomatoes the same way, but with more room between each plant, at least two feet.

I would plant the blackberries along the outside of the 15 foot long side, if that is the shadiest side of your garden. If not, plant them on the 8 foot long side. Plant your blueberry bushes on the inside of that row, at least three or four feet from the blackberries. Then plant your strawberry rows and last your raspberry canes. Use the short part of your "L" for the garlic, onions, peppers and tomatoes.

Good luck with your garden!