Progress...

   I finally made some progress with the blackberry removal along the property line where are extension for the garden will go. Most of it was already dead canes but still quite a few green ones. Even with wearing long sleeved coat and jeans, those thorns can be vicious!

    As you can see from the picture above there are some decent piles of the brush and different levels of dirt. As it turns out the height of the dirt at the base of the property fence in some areas is 2ft higher than the ground where the piles of cut brush sits. This in itself can be a problem but I have already decided on a solution. I plan on making a wood retaining wall about 2 feet away from the property line and back filling it with all the extra dirt. This will give me a raised bed where we plan on growing Jerusalem Artichokes and Mammoth Sunflowers. It will be, we think, 48 feet long by 2 feet wide by 2ft deep. Hoping to have the tree cut down, fence and T-post fixed, with the rest of the area cleaned up soon so that I can get started on that retaining wall.

     Some probably think I am crazy for taking out wild blackberry bushes but as you can see, this is what happens when you leave them unattended. We have chickens and they loved digging through the bushes to get all the bugs but alas because the property line fence was buried and damaged in a few spots, they kept escaping into the neighbors yard. We constructed a barrier fence of 3ft U-post and chicken wire to keep the chickens out until I could get rid of the brush. Between the property fence and the barrier fence is about 10-15ft. Who in their right mind would want to give up that much yard? Add on that it is at least 75ft long, that's a lot of gardening space!
     If you are going to keep wild blackberries or even growing other varieties, you should make sure to cut the dead growth and dispose of accordingly. The plants will be healthier and produce better berries if you upkeep them properly.
     I am so excited to be this far into this clean up project! It is not easy to take out these kind of bushes when they start flowering, which is why I took them out before that could happen. The goal for this project is to have everything cleared, fixed, cleaned up, and fenced with the retaining wall up by this fall.


If you would like to see what this area looked like before, you can check up my other 2 post: http://thebornehomestead.blogspot.com/2013/02/yard-clean-up.html  and http://thebornehomestead.blogspot.com/2013/02/yard-clean-up-continued.html