Blackberries and grapes

Last year, late into the year, my Mom gave me a cherry tree "baby", some sprigs of her grapes and a couple of blackberries to plant. We weren't sure if they'd take hold before the winter or survive the hottest time of the year...and they didn't. I lost all but one blackberry.

I was going to try some of hers again as she has plenty, but haven't been able to get up to her area and have forgotten to mention it every time my parents came in our direction. So, I bought two grape vines and a blackberry at our local Lowes store.

I picked up some composted manure and some fruit dirt. That sounds funny --- fruit dirt. I read the instructions and learned that I shouldn't fertilize when first planting so I worked the stuff into the soil around where I intended to plant and just used top soil mixed with our Georgia clay and the dirt on the root ball when putting the plants into the ground.

Lucky for me it has rained a few times since I planted them a little over a week ago. The leaves fell off the blackberry when I planted it... It was a tiny stick to begin and only had two little leaves. It was the only one they had that had any leaves at all! But it was less than $4 (on sale) and they have a guarantee on them so it was worth a shot.

I'm going to get Mom to save a few cherry tree shooters for me and will try that again.

My goal is to have a yard full of fruit. I have a pomegranate, two blueberries, figs, and some other random types of fruit trees or bushes. Unfortunately, the birds and deer enjoy the fruit more than we do! Living on five wooded acres makes my garden a salad bar buffet of treats for the wild life! In fact, I moved my tomatoes and beans into containers on the back porch this year just to make sure I'd get some.

Hopefully in a few years I'll have grapes and blackberries to fight the wild life over.