Growing Fruits and Berries in a Backyard Garden

In this video I show how I have organized my garden to include fruits and berries. I have Aronia, Saskatoons,. Haskaps, Blueberries, Lingon Berries, Strawberries, Raspberries, Pears and Apples.

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[Music] Hey, it’s Greg here with maritime.com and as you can see, I’ve got a pretty big garden and working hard to get everything in and everything going in uh getting into getting on to late May now. I thought I’d do a video. I mean, most of the things in my garden are vegetables. Um, but I do have a fair amount of fruits and berries. And I thought I’d talk about organizing a garden such that it’s ideally set up to incorporate fruits and berries. But I just thought I’d talk about having a lot of fruits and berries in your garden. Uh, and how I’ve gone about doing it. Bearing in mind my situation is unique. I’m not in the suburbs. My garden backs onto a forest. I’ve got bears and raccoons and porcupines and rabbits and all kinds of things trying to get in to eat all my stuff. So, I’ve got a fence. Everything has to happen inside the fence. And if anything’s too close to the fence, something will find a way to get over under the fence and get at it. Uh, so those are all considerations, but let me just talk about this now. So, I’ve got this big garden and this way is south, that way is north. And I have all my perennial almost all uh I there’s a section over here I call the fruit section. Now it’s not the only place I have fruits but it is sort of where I’ve got because the garden’s an odd shape. It’s not a rectangle. It’s not a circle. It’s sort of a L-shaped garden. So I got some fruits elsewhere in the garden but most of them are over there. Let me talk about that first. All right. So here we are in the fruit section. Okay. Again, this is north. This is south. So, I’ve put all those things over here because they’re all high, right? I’ve got blueberry bushes and trees and different things like that. They all have height and I don’t want because the sun is often going in this direction cuz south is this way. So, I don’t want those things planted casting shade on the things behind them. That’s a general rule. Um, and so I tend to have the big things planted at the back and the small things planted in front of them. So these are blueberry bushes, right? They only get about 3 4 feet high. High bush blueberries. I have them here. Then behind them, I’ve got apple tree and pear tree, apple tree, that sort of thing cuz they’re higher. Now, behind them, I actually do have more berry bushes. Um, but you can see they’re already leafed out and they’re already these tend to come on and flower and all of that uh before the apple trees even really have leaves. So, these apple trees aren’t casting any shade right now. And you can see these hascaps have already leafed out and have already flowered. And there’s already bees visiting them. So, they’re already they’re getting pollinated right now. Same with these Saskatoon, right? They’re flowering and leafed out and so they’ll still get they’ll get enough light. I mean, it would be ideal if they’re on this side of the apple trees. But I’ve learned the hard way that if you have your apple tree right next to your fence, number one, it’s just hard to deal with it. But number two, it attracts bears into the garden. I got bears walking along the perimeter and they see the apple, right? It’s just too much for them. Um, when these are I mean, sure, these are attractive, too, but not the way apples are. And when these are producing these different variable, I got some bees. I got a bumblebee on this one right now. When these are producing, I have um not netting. I put a cloth over them, like a frost cover. It still allows light to get through, but it obscures them from being seen by birds. So, I actually think the, you know, it’s like a cloth, right? It’s like a white cloth, white synthetic synthetic cloth used to protect plants from frost. Uh, I use that to keep the birds from seeing the berries, right? And it works. Sometimes they figure it out. They’re pretty smart. Um, but uh that’s what I used to cover these. And my theory is that it maybe, you know, or maybe the bears just haven’t figured out that I got good berries here. That’s it. The only reason they haven’t I mean, sometimes people think they’ve got a solution to a problem. But it’s really the the thing they think is the solution isn’t really a solution. They just haven’t had the problem present itself yet. So, I could think that this thing I’m covering this with is keeping bears from eating them, but it could just be that the bears had never been around when they’re fully ripe and so they haven’t figured it out and that’s it. So, we’ll see. Uh, anyway, I got those there and those there. Uh, along this edge, this is the this direction is east. I got a tree line here, but I tend to manage these trees every once in a while. I cut them down and feed I just bought a wood chipper this year. Um, so you know, you just cut them down and feed them into wood chipper. Oh, and people, regular viewers, if you want me to do a video, there’s so many videos on wood chippers. I don’t really see the point of doing one, but if you want me to talk about the wood chipper I got and what I think about it. Um, and just general points on using wood chippers, let me know in the comments. I’ll make that video. Um anyway, I tend to maintain uh a space here where there’s no trees within the first first 12 ft. Anything starts turning into a tree, I cut it down. Uh and if anything back there gets any real height, I’ll cut that down, too. And there’s trees perpetually growing. And the trees I cut down, they come back, right? Like you cut a maple tree, it just comes back, right? It doesn’t kill the tree. it just, you know, you cut down a maple tree and it turns into five trees, that sort of thing, right? Um, same thing with a birch tree. Um, anyway, so I maintain a perimeter there so the light I can get some some degree of an angle. You don’t want like, you know, 8 foot high trees growing right next to your fence. It’ll cause all kinds of shade if you establish a perimeter. I mean, there’s still brush and all kinds of stuff there. Um, but the light can get at this blueberry. And you see how the blueberry is about 4t from the fence, right? I I used to have my Sorry, I’m calling this a blueberry. It’s grapes. You see how the grapes are about 4 ft from the fence? I used to grow them against the fence. And guess what? Raccoons would climb the fence despite the fact that I got barb wire and they get at the grapes. So, you don’t want to draw things in. So, I keep them away from the fence. Um anyway, the idea is I’ve got them along here. You know, the sun tends to be going in this direction. I mean, in the morning it goes this way, but then it sort of, you know, it follows a path. So, looking at the horizon, this time of year, the sun’s over there, and then it sort of takes, it doesn’t go straight up overhead because I’m not I don’t live at the equator. It goes into the south this way, and then it kind of goes up, never directly overhead, and then sets down over there. But always most of the day, it’s in the south at an angle. Right. Um even more so in the winter, right? Uh so this doesn’t really cast shade. It casts a bit of shade in the morning, but pretty soon the sun’s over here and it’s it’s getting everything here is getting direct sun. So this doesn’t really cast meaningful shade. So it’s okay having these grapes here. Uh along here, even lower, I got strawberries. And this is linganberry or what we we call around here, partridge berry. Uh this bed over here is uh potatoes. They’re already planted. Um and I tend to have one vegetable here every year just cuz I think I got enough fruits. Three beds of strawberries is all you need, right? It’s just enough. I got like basically one spare bed. So eventually these strawberries will get old and I’ll plant new strawberries here. And once the new ones are established, I’ll grow something like potatoes or squash here. These are this this whole area gets really good sun. It’s a good sunny spot, right? It’s not close to the hill. It’s not close to the edge. Gets good sun. So, it’s a good place to grow berries. Now, I got some perennials. So, you can see the perennials are all sort of around the perimeter, right? I got that’s think think about this end of the garden, the whole thing. If if my vegetable garden ends here, this is like an edge. It’s just a giant edge, right? So, all these berries are over there. Asparagus here. This is an edge of a of a sort, right? So, I’ve got raspberries here. That’s a fruit. Uh this perimeter here, I tend to grow potatoes and things along here. You notice this edge, I don’t have berries planted along here. uh the very edge of the garden. As you can see right now, I’ve got all kinds of wild things growing outside the area, and they send roots up. So, this edge, I’m in a constant battle with the various kinds of weeds that are coming in from the forest. Um, now I’ve had viewers tell me to cover this whole area with cardboard and put sawdust over it or something. Uh, that’s I’m sure that would work, but it’s an incredible amount of work. It’s much easier just to plant something here that’s easy to manage. So, I tend to plant things like potatoes here. I I put potatoes in the ground and then I put a really heavy mulch over them and and then I dig all the potatoes up. So any weeds that have moved in over the course of the growing season, they get sorted out when I’m digging into potatoes or I cover the whole thing in cardboard and plant something like squash and just cut little holes in the cardboard and plant squash. Anyway, getting off topic here, not fruit. I don’t plant fruit here even though this is an edge. Got some wild uh raspberries growing here. Yes, but I don’t want those. I’ve got cultivars. Uh these just cast shade on whatever I’m trying to grow here, so I don’t need them. And of course, I’ve got rhubarb over here, which you could call a fruit. It’s not, but you tend to eat it like for desserts. So, a perennial, right? Again, on an edge. This is not a great spot, but rhubarb grows so easily, it doesn’t matter. Oh, for anyone wondering what this is, this is a rhubarb flower. And you see these things, you should you should cut them off. They just rob energy from the plant. They’re going to make seeds. You don’t need the seeds. So, remove them, right? Just just get them out here. They’re in the woods over here. I got another kind of edge, right? That way is south. That’s north. This is an edge. Uh so why not grow perennials here? It makes sense, right? They’ve got height. They cast shade. Uh so I’ve got uh Aronia berry here. This is year two. I planted this last year. Look, it’s already fruing a little bit, right? So, it’s not going to grow that much this year, but it’s something, right? This is a Saskatoon. I’ve got some perennial herbs in front. It’s just a process I’m working on. Another Saskatoon. This is a cutting I took from the other aronia. Just some There was one growing up out of the ground. I just cut it off, put some root hormone on it, stuck it in the ground. I did that about two months ago and look, it’s growing. Um, this is a Saskatoon. This is lovage, a kind of perennial celery. Not a fruit, but a perennial. This is, I think, a Saskatoon. And another Saskatoon here. And another Saskatoon here. Right. So, again, I’m using the edge to grow perennials, but not too close to the fence. Right. So then you know the edges can be weeded, they can be problematic, but you keep them heavily mulched. You focus on perennials. I think it’s a better way to go. I think the berries will do well here because it has unobstructed access to sunlight coming from the south, right? And good drainage, right? Because these beds are about 10 in above grade, right? So, I’ve noticed trying to grow vegetables here, they grow okay, but they don’t grow great. And it’s because these are a bit dry, uh, compared to like a bed like this, which is at grade, right? This bed’s maybe 3 in above. It’s slightly all my beds are slightly raised, right? The soil is three 4 in above grade sort of thing. So, everything growing in these beds has all the water can possibly want. This bed is raised a lot more. It’s I find less than ideal for a lot of vegetables. Perfect for fruing berries and things like that. Good drainage. They got deep roots. It’s better conditions for them. And of course, I got a kind of a wild section of the garden here where I just let things go crazy. That’s the great thing about having a pond. So, I’ve got a kind of perimeter around the pond, right? which it’s you can see I didn’t do very good cement work here. I mix this cement wrong here. It’s degraded. But the idea with having this the cement around here is to keep uh weeds under control. Uh because I thought it would be great to have this edge of the garden just go completely wild, but I don’t want so many weeds. They travel underground. So I didn’t want those weeds migrating out into my garden. So, I built this sort of concrete barrier to prevent them because look, if you don’t have it, you can see where it ends here. Look what happens. The weeds just find life finds a way. Anyway, the advantage of having this kind of wild perennial mess over here. And you can see I’ve got some wild strawberries are in bloom right now, but there’s also uh wild raspberries over here. These are all things that just happened. Um, wild iris I plant I actually found that somewhere else and stuck it it was growing somewhere else in my garden and I just stuck it in here cuz irises like to be on a water’s edge. Um, but all of these things will bloom and attract pollinators and that sort of thing. So, it’s good to have a bunch of It’s not not like my garden isn’t surrounded by wild things anyway. Your whole garden is surrounded by wild things. So, I have no problems with pollination because something is p something is flowering all the time where I live, right? But if you weren’t not in a situation like that, if you were in a suburb and you had a large property, lucky enough to have that these days, um, think about if you’re going to have a fruit garden, maybe having a pond, you’ve got ready access to water. Um, we don’t worry about mosquitoes because I’ve got goldfish, right? I hope this guy doesn’t run away. But there’s one right there. I don’t know if you can see him. He’s about an inch below the surface just hanging out. And there’s some big ones in here. I actually saw a huge one, maybe 6 in long, and it was getting very close to a frog. And I saw the frog jump up out of the water. There’s a frog right right there. If you can see him. Big guy. Beautiful frog. Anyway, just some considerations. You know, if you’ve got a large garden, it does save work to have a lot of fruits and berries because they’re perennial, right? I mean, vegetables are great, but they’re work, right? You got to plant them, you got to harvest them, right? Most perennials, you got to keep them mulched, keep them pruned, and that’s it. Uh, so I mean the effort I put into, for instance, the Hascap berries I have over there, I probably spend 30 minutes a year pruning them and maybe an hour a year weeding and remulching the area beneath them. So an hour and a half or like let’s say two hours a year managing those plants and any other time spent on those plants is picking the fruit. So two hours for that. It’s the same thing for the apples and the pears and the blueberries and all that sort of stuff. It’s very little effort compared to what you get back. It takes about two or three years for them to start to produce. But, you know, once they get established, they just get bigger and healthier and more productive every year. So, I mean, it makes sense to plant things you like that you want to eat that make almost all these berries I use for jam. Uh, we just love I like homemade bread and I like jam. You could put that on my gravestone. Liked homemade. He liked homemade bread and jam because I do, right? So, we have the Ascat berry jam is delicious. It’s strawberry jam. Freezer jam of course. Um, this year hoping I get enough berries to make this Saskatoon jam. Uh, the blueberries I don’t use for jam, but make myself a blueberry crumble or pie, something like that. Uh, more blueberry muffins, but mostly pie. Anyway, for me, you you can grow a lot more vegetables like carrots and beets and cabbages and things like that if you don’t devote a large portion of your garden to fruits and berries. Um, but if you like fruits and they’re very expensive, right? These things are getting more and more costly in the grocery everything’s getting more costly in the grocery store, but especially fruits and berries because they tend to be shipped from somewhere else. Uh so if you like fruits and berries, um you want to save some money, it may and you have space, you have the space, it makes sense to devote a lot of your garden to those things. Also, I suppose if you’re getting older and the the toil of digging and weeding and the work involved in growing vegetables, it’s just a lot easier to grow perennial fruits and berries. It really is. It’s just a little pruning and a little bit of weeding it, very little effort. Um, and but it takes patience, two, three years for them to start to produce. You got to be prepared for that, right? Plant these things. If you’re staying put, you’re not going anywhere. Anyway, I hope you found that video interesting. If you did, please like, share, subscribe, check out my podcast at maritime.com. Check out my articles at maritime gardening.substack.com. Uh, if you’re into the outdoors, check out my other channel, Outdoors on the Cheap, where I just show how to enjoy fishing and the outdoors and that sort of thing without spending a small fortune on all this crap that people seem to think they need. Other than that, until next time, get out there, get at it, have fun in your garden. Thanks for watching. [Music] There we go. [Music] There we go. Nicely done. Good one. [Music]