Spring on a Berry Farm

Planting, watering and weeding... Lots and lots of weeding!  

 Here is a quick glimpse of what we have been doing the past couple of weeks.

 We planted 10 new rows of blackberry plants.

Connected the water lines.   

Each row has it's own shut off valve. 

This helps us water more effectively.  

We have found that some parts of the field need more water than other sections.

This time of year it is a race between the weeds and the berry plants.  

Here is a weedy row of raspberry plants.

(I guess it is a little crazy to take pictures of weeds!)

We hand weed...

We like our customers to be able to taste the berries and not worry about chemicals. 

It is a pretty intense job and everyone helps out.  

Some of the tools we use are Nitrile glove. 

They help with the thorns and have a better grip than traditional gardening gloves. 

Young berry canes are fragile and break easily the thinner gloves help us carefully weed up against the berry plants.

I also use an old boat seat to save my knees. :) 

Our methods are pretty simple, but effective. 

Once the plants are taller than the weeds, they shade the ground and we have fewer weeds in the rows.  

We will continue to walk the rows and pull weeds when we see them throughout the season.

Here is a pretty section of weeded raspberries.

This is our Berry Farm in the spring!

I can't wait to taste sweet sun ripened raspberries and big juicy blackberries.  

Yum Yum!

Grow little berry plants grow!  

 Cherilyn