The Compost Bin

One thing that’s on my garden to do list is to get rid of my blackberries. Look at this giant tangled mess. To give you an idea of how big this plant is, the raised bed that these blackberries have completely taken over is 12 feet wide by 3 feet deep.

Besides being out of control, another reason why I want to get rid of them is the thorns. My whole family loves eating them but the thorns are usually responsible for one of my kids crying every time we pick some berries. They go right through my thickest gloves too. Cutting this plant down will be no picnic.

And the last strike against this blackberry is that it’s sending runners all over my garden. I’ve got blackberry canes popping up in the nearby raised beds and I’m tired of pulling them out. As I said the thorns stick me right through my gloves. Ouch!

I’m going to cut and dig out everything that I can in the raised bed. And then when new runners continue to pop up all around the garden, instead of pulling them out, I’ve got another plan. I’m going to make a paste of salt and vinegar. Then I'll cut the invading cane and apply the paste to the wound. I’m hopping this will kill the runner back to the source. It may not work but short of digging up my entire garden, this is the best idea I came up with. Obviously I'm not going to spray something like Roundup in my vegetable garden.

The last step in this blackberry removal project is to buy some more blackberries. I’m thinking about going with a Prime Jim from Stark Brothers. This thornless variety produces fruit on first year canes and it sounds great to me. As I said, my family loves fresh blackberries every summer so who am I to let them down.