# My little orchard / vineyard



## toddrod (Feb 21, 2011)

Here is mine. It is not much, but supplies me with hundreds of pounds of muscadines and in the near future, Blackberries. It is complete with drip irrigation to each grape vine and to the beds.


In this photo is 8 muscadine vines and a newly planted blackberry bed













This entire chain wall will be planted with Natchez and Ouachita Blackberries. The other bed was Kiowa.


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## toddrod (Feb 21, 2011)

In total I will have 20 Blackberry plants. The muscadine varities include - Ison, Darlene, Sweet Jenny, Pam, Black Beauty and Pineapple.


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## grapeman (Feb 21, 2011)

Another one of them dang people with no snow already!








Good luck with the blackberries and continued sucess with the grapes.


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## toddrod (Feb 21, 2011)

Snow - what is that? I live deep in S. Louisiana.


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## AlFulchino (Feb 21, 2011)

looking good...you will have plenty of fruit


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## Bartman (Feb 21, 2011)

My "experiment" went well for a couple years - I started with 7 blackberries pots like yours. In Dallas, they grow very well with just a little extra moisture if the early summer is dry. But, other things grow well under those conditions and I started having to battle other plants that were growing among the blackberries



. Since blackberries fruit during each cane's second year (and then the cane dies off), I had to let stuff grow until I could see if it was a blackberry sprout or something else. So, the blackberries grew along with lots of other stuff -they got a good start before I got to them to remove them. Then I discovered birds (especially mockingbirds) love the fruit, even if it's not fully ripe. Lots of fruit lost to those pesky critters (there were times when I muttered about whether it really was a sin to kill a mockingbird)



. The final straw - those birds spread the seed in and around the blackberry beds, leading to new plants near the original plants. Also learned that these volunteer offspring of these hybrid plants seem to be much weaker and frequently don't fruit at all.





Finally killed what was left this winter and am deciding what to do with the bed, if I can kill off the other hardier things that invaded early on.





All that said, what fruit I got in the first few years was really good, juicy and worth the initial cost of putting in the beds. The later years of frustration soured me on blackberry-growing however.


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## toddrod (Feb 21, 2011)

The Kiowa, with its thorns, I am not too worried about. The thornless ones I am because I have a big coon problem. Caught 12 in my grapes last year. I will defintely cover the thornless with netting when the time comes.


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## Runningwolf (Feb 21, 2011)

Looks great Nice neat beds


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## Waldo (Feb 22, 2011)

Looking good Todd....I do love my Blackberry wine


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## Wade E (Feb 22, 2011)

That is very nice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## toddrod (Aug 21, 2011)

These are my muscadine vines as of today
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3cU6TSZkSU"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3cU6TSZkSU[/ame]


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## ibglowin (Aug 21, 2011)

Looking good!


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