"Huh?" I was puzzled.
"Did you bring your camera?" Joerg asked.
"No."
"No way!"
Whoops. I'll bring it next time!
Then we walked the property line measuring for our fence. We need lots of posts. Tposts are more expensive than wood here, so we're goin' with wooden round posts. Since the ground is frozen solid we can't start on this for a while. But we can shop around. Hopefully we'll find posts for under 5 Euros each!
They say when you buy a house, everything takes more time than you expect, and everything takes much more money than you expect. That's right on so far! Good thing the house doesn't need work. We just have to get the place horse-ready.
As we walked the fenceline, I was disheartened (putting it lightly) to see the extent of the blackberries both climbing over from the neighboring property, and in our own backyard. With all the ponds and stream, we probably can't use chemicals, and I don't know any other good way to get rid of Pacific Northwest blackberries (I call them that cuz you know what I mean if you live in the PNW). Looking for answers online, so many people said, "Just make pie! Jam!" I wanted to say, "You pie and jam people, you have never lived in the PNW and had an infestation. So you can shut up!" (Good - someone else said that.)But this is Germany, what are the chances they allow joe citizen to buy RoundUp? *snicker* I know what I'll be doing the next 10 years: digging up roots. Again and again.
Man, it's a good thing we didn't buy 20 acres. Imagine how many more blackberries would be encroaching!Fun blackberry tip: They grow one inch per day. *shudder* My stepdad told me about this vine down south that grows so fast you can hear and see it grow. I bet it doesn't have thorns.
The good news is the blackberries growing in our backyard are only knee/hip high so far, they're new. Gotta get them now. As soon as the ground thaws, I guess: )
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23 comments:
I think your dad was talking about kudzu which does grow insanely fast. It drapes over everything in thick green curtains of vine and dark green leaves.
I don't think it has thorns but it's notoriously tough to get rid of because it's just freaky how fast it grows.
Made me claustrophobic when I drove through Georgia and it was everywhere!
Just found your blog, looking forward to reading!
Ooh blackberry pie! But I know what you mean. Our oak trees are infested with huge balls of mistletoe. Most people think it's so novel. Little do they know mistletoe is a parasitic plant that takes over! And it's poison. Good thing it's at the top of the trees and the horses can't reach it. But I think they have enough other food and sense not to eat it.
Ahh blackberries, one sure fire solution for them is goats! You need 2 or 3 smaller type goats to run in the fields. Once you cut the big canes down the goats love the sprouts and will eventually kill them out along with a lot of other weeds horses wont eat. Here in WV where the pastures are too steep to mow, at least mine, we have wild blackberries, raspberries, multiflora rose ( a real nasty invasive plant)a lovely tough vine called rip-shins and something called horse lettuce all with nasty thorns. The goats love them all! Maybe you could rent a few goats just in the nice weather?
Goats - we tried that. The goat disturbed the neighors with his loud BAA-ing and he wouldn't eat the blackberries. Or, maybe he ate a few leaves but couldn't make a dent in them.
*sigh*
To former WestSeattleite!
Remember the goats? Tante
We lived in South Carolina and had terrible problems with kudzu trying to crawl out of the forest and cover up everything it came into contact with. We could literally go to bed at night with the edges of our property cler cut of kudzu and when we woke up, several FEET of it had crawled into our yard. Scary stuff! I often got nightmares of me falling asleep in the backyard an waking up being smothered by kudzu and noone being able to find me. gah!
Goats are really good at eating the brambles...but you have to have more than one, as they not on only need buddies to keep them from being lonely (and annoying the neighbors), but also to make a dent in the brambles. Oh, and don't feed them any other food during their job.
Congrats on getting the half wall done, too.
~Lisa
New Mexico, USA
laughing orca, winter:
i can't even imagine that. (kudzu) now i really want to go down south and see that. it's on our list of things to do, actually, visiting the deep south. joerg's never been there and new orleans is really somthing to see!
now i'm gonna have a nightmare about vines that grow over you in the night. *shudder*
tante mary - don't remind me, it hurts. ~nichte beth
Maybe giving a few goats a try would be a good idea? At least this way Baasha would have company!
Tom Robbins had a great bit in _Still Life With Woodpecker_ (chapter 2? early in the book) about how people in Seattle had to hack back the blackberry vines every night and every morning, and if you oversleep there's an emergency number to call so the crews can hack you out. He was only slightly exaggerating, I think.
Goats, no good. Goats aren't stupid: fences taste better than vines. Duh.
Flame throwers are a nice, non-toxic solution to blackberry vines, and good entertainment on those dreary rainy days. Temporary, though.
OTOH, if you can build a fence and have blackberries grow on the neighbor's side, and keep your own side hacked back, you will never have your horse break out of your pasture. Ever.
Bright side, yah-no?
LOL our wonderful Pacific NW blackberries were brought over by europeans, so you have the original! I dont know if you can get crossbow ( brand name chemical)over there but you can paint it on instead of spray it too, but only the new active canes! and it wont harm animals or grass only woody shubs and blackberries.
woody shrubs, LOL sometimes I type to fast
Those would be Himalayan blackberries here. Nasty infestations! Goats will east the leaves, and that eventually kills the plant by stressing it. Takes a while. The plants don’t like mowing/cutting. Takes time, too. Try getting nursery grade acetic acid (same thing as vinegar). Or sometimes regular full strength vinegar works, too. Cut the canes and douse it on the ends that feed back to the plant. Takes multiple applications, but eventually works.
Aww, I feel so sad when you talk about "bad" blackberry infestations! What I wouldn't give to have some plants growing in my yard. But then, I've never been able to grow anything that bears fruit. Any fruit trees I've planted have either died, been infested with something, or the weather or birds get all the blossoms or fruit before I can. That's one of the drawbacks of living in the southwest.
I did live in Florida many years ago and kudzu grows like crazy! All over everything!! Check out this photo from wikipedia http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Kudzu4903.JPG
well that din't work so how about this one? http://www.nap.edu/staff/mjensen/iacrl/kudzu-car.jpg
Aarene, good point - a lot of our blackberries are really the neighbor's, crawling over our fenceline. The horse will NEVER go that way to escape: ) Since Germany is so eco-friendly-obsessed, a lot of gardeners use a plant burner (flame thrower?) to kill weeds because it doesn't harm the overly sensitive German environment. I'm fascinated by these "garden torches" but I read they don't help with blackberries.
Latigo Liz, thanks, I am looking forward to trying that! I bet it won't hurt the trout, huh?
Fantastyk, did it have to be a Civic that was covered up by kudzu? That's my favorite car!: ) But trust me, you don't want this curse on your land. Take a look at the images I've posted and imagine what those thorny canes do to you as you try to remove them. They are dense and higher than you are, sometimes shooting canes way up 20 feet high into trees.
From what I've read this week, the only way to permanently remove them is to find all the roots and dig up every piece of the root system - repeatedly cuz you never can get them all at once.
But you can't get to the roots cuz the brambles are thick, high, and almost everytime you cut one, it makes you bleed as you try to rip it away from its clingythorned friends. The blackberries usually win the war, because they fight back.
If you can get all the brambles torn out, and promptly cut every new sprout, it will take 4 years before the root remnants stop shooting up new plants. Better to try to get every root, but we'll see how that goes.
Clip, clip, clip! That is what we are doing here on the farm with briars and berries. After clipping you can sorta manage them by mowing.
We always save a patch for the pies, jams, jellies.
We jokingly call Kudzu the plant that ate the south.
I have one word for you: Ughhhh!!!
As a fellow PNW'er, I totally sympathize with your plight. I would recommend goats and good, old fashioned nippers...lol!!!
I like the idea of an industrial-strength flame-thrower. These must be some monster-growing blackberry vines.
I like the goat idea...they keep the horses company too. Good luck...I battle one blackberry vine every year and have never been able to completely get rid of it.
Goats!
KK
To the people recommending goats against blackberries - have you actually tried it? In the PNW against the "monster" blackberries?
Like I said, I actually tried goats, and it didn't work. Like the people here who've related their first-hand experience using goats, this particular bush is just too much for a goat, you have to help them. A lot. If I have to spend so much time cutting, helping goats, I may as well just go ahead and cut it all. I suppose. *sigh*
Thanks for the input - there's no great solution to this that I can see.
I have used goats here in WV for 30 years to keep my farms clean. Mowing isn't an option on my steep pastures. PNW blackberries may be prolific growers but I fail to see where there would be any difference in Brier sprouts here in the PNW or Germany. Goats love Brier sprouts. As with anything organic you have to do it right. Once they are properly fenced in goats are worth their weight in gold for brush control. To start you have to cut the canes, small trees and other shrubbery back, goats are browsers not wood chippers, then they go to town on the sprouts until they kill everything out. One goat will baa all day without a buddy. A single goat isn't a happy goat. Stay away from bottle babies, their main mission in life is to get back on the porch and they will scream every time they see you. Same for very tame goats, especially ones that have been given treats; they also will make a lot of noise every time you are in view. Get rid of any outlaw goat, an outlaw is the odd goat who refuses to be fenced in, they will quickly show the rest how to get out. Fencing is important and this is where most people fail. Either electric or woven wire works well. I prefer woven wire that the goats can stick their heads through to keep the brush from growing up to and over your fence. Loose goats can wreck havoc on you and your neighbors gardens and flowers in a hurry. Then they dance on your cars! LOL You only thought your neighbors were pissed about noise. I don't like horned goats, they get their heads stuck in the wire and no matter how often they do it they are too stupid to ever learn not to. They also can be pretty rough on each other with those horns. Only the bucks stink so stick to does or weathers. Another upside is goats don't make any mud
I haven't had any goats for the last 6 years or so and the place was growing up again so I just added a small herd to clean the place up. I got to thinking, while writing this, and the only 2 things that are not growing back are the briers and locust trees, which also have wicked thorns. My donkeys also eat the briers, locust sprouts and thistles. So if briers are your only problem and goats don't float your boat maybe you could add a cute little donkey?
You have found that Round Up is available here in Germany, right?
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