Pam – Page 100 – New England's Narrow Road

Blackberry Brambles Are a Real Pain

flowering blackberry bush — Battling the Blackberries

Pretty little white flowers mean blackberries will be growing soon. I hate them.
Blackberry bushes, or blackberry brambles, cover the sloping area of my backyard and I spent most of last Fall pruning and pulling them up to make room for my garden. My backyard is tiny and they are the last think I need causing me trouble, but they aren’t easy to get rid of with their very thorny stems. They can easily take over with runners underground and as they grow throughout the summer their tall, spiky branches hang over my tomatoes and other crops.

I don’t like the plants and I don’t like the berries. The only seed-filled berries I like are raspberries and I can stomach the black raspberries, but not these (yes, they are different). I have bunches of raspberry plants too, and I wish they produced more berries, but I don’t think they get enough sun. Someone must have planted them years ago and now they are stuck back in the shade.

I don’t like the taste or the looks of the blackberry plant. I guess I should pick whatever the chipmunks don’t eat and give them away -once they have fruit. Then I’ll get out my clippers and chop them down as they stick me with their thorns…ugh.

Blackberry Pruning – How to Trim Blackberry Bushes (johnspagarden.wordpress.com)
Berry Recipes – Strawberries, Raspberries & More! (berries.com)
A Guide to Growing Your Own Berries! (berries.com)

Re-purposing Window Grilles For the Garden

flower vine — Recycled window dividers used as a trellis.

When I bought my house the sliding door and another glass door had white dividers, or grilles, in them. I don’t like that look. I like my windows to be clear and open – free of dividers to block my view outside. I was happy to find that the dividers could be unsnapped and removed, so I took them all off and stored them in the garage. I thought they would make good trellises for the vegetables.

Well, they do, if you don’t try to put anything too heavy on them. They are a bit flimsy and won’t hold up without breaking but the one I used for my morning glory vine is doing a nice job. The vine isn’t very large yet, but they don’t get big and heavy. I have it next to the deck so the vines can grow up and wrap around the deck railings.

It’s just one way you can use junk in the garden. I hate to spend money on expensive trellises, and truthfully, I couldn’t find any I liked. All my new windows are grille free too – you can find my grilles in the garden.

My Kitty and The Birdbath

Skittle is my water-loving cat. She has decided that she must drink out of the birdbath each time she goes out front and especially if I am out there and spraying water to fill it.

She has a bowl of clean water right inside the garage, which I leave open a bit all day for the cats to hide from dogs if they have to, but this is more fun I suppose.

She also drinks from the hose if I have it turned on low to deep-water the shrubs, and inside the house she drinks from the sink. She is one of those needy cats who wants attention all the time and she goes in and out all day long.

I used to leave the back screen open just a bit for her until she decided that bringing a chipmunk into the house would be fun. After spending most of one day shooing it outside, I can’t do that any more.

cat drinking from birdbath — Skittle is my water-loving Kitty

Eventually she pulled the top of the birdbath over and it broke. That thing was heavy and could have hurt her, so she was lucky.

Adding a Stone Wall Barrier to the Front Yard

My front yard slopes down toward the house and for the most part that doesn’t bother me, except when it rains hard and all the sediment and sand from the road washes into my yard.
The only real option was to put up a barrier of some kind to keep the water running off down the swale at the side of the yard.
Back in May I had someone out to give me an estimate to build a stone wall. Wow, it was gonna cost me! And then it rained, and they got busy, and the job kept getting delayed. A few weeks ago we had a torrential rain, which is unusual for this area, and I went out in my raincoat to pile some small rocks along the edge of the waterline to keep the water out.
I was getting ticked off at the landscapers who didn’t call, but finally one morning I got the call at 7:30 AM that they were coming to build my wall. Halleluiah!
They added a straight line of large rocks (the rocks in front were already there) to make a natural-looking wall. After about four hours of shifting the big rocks around I had my wall. It really needed to be longer, but I didn’t dare change anything with these people. I won’t use them again just because they were unprofessional as far as keeping me informed.

Now I will need to get the dirt moved to the garden area in back of the wall and find some good shade plants to add along the wall. The big part, and expense, is done.