Rhubarb, berries, pear tree, broad bean landrace and comfrey

I've made another video taking note of things that I've not recorded, or have visibly changed. This will be quite helpful in keeping track of things like having a visual record of which pear is which on the double-grafted one.  You can't trust the nurseries and orchards and should check these things yourself, I've had several instances where they've botched things.  And also noting the traits of individual varieties of broad bean in the landrace as they cross-pollinate from year to year.

It's another foggy Spring morning. The fog actually lifted earlier, and the sun was so low I almost had to close the blinds so I could work. The grass and dock have taken off in the past two weeks, as has the rhubarb.  I'm going to have to clear the grass before making movies, or taking photos, as it is quite hard to see some things that are growing amongst grass.

I increased the quality the phone camera was recording, and used a weight to try and stablise the camera from shaking.  In this case I basically sat the phone sideways on the rock and held it there, carrying it around.  It seemed to make a difference, but wasn't perfect.

Cuttings and rooted canes

Yesterday, while pulling up the boysenberry canes from under the grass, and  staking them up in a poor mans trellis, I managed to break a few of the canes.  Noticing that they had white roots, I decided to try and pot them for later replanting.

Behind the boysenberry, are two planter bags of cuttings of what I believe to be heritage "Gabrier's Gully Gold Field" gooseberry that someone went out and retrieved.  Named for the location, rather than any particular variety.  And behind that are two more planter bags of Invicta gooseberry cuttings.

Poor mans berry trellis

Reading New Zealand fruit books and remembering what I read online, the gist was to cut away canes that had fruited, and to trellis the trailing canes for next year's fruit.  However, one of the books says that generally brambles fruit on 2 year old canes, so how you identify what ones fruited last year I guess is a matter of experience.

I don't have the experience or tools to make a proper trellis, so I've just taken the poor man's approach.  I basically uncovered all the trailing canes out of the surrounding grass, and tied them up the post with garden twine.

Here's the Tasman boysenberries:

And my neglected Brulee boysenberries.  Unfortunately, these were set back when some grazing cattle ate them down to the ground.  Their growth hasn't been spectacular since then.

I need to come up with a simple way of doing more extensive trellising.

Boysenberries

I don't know why, but I've always preferred boysenberries. Maybe it's just the fact boysenberry ice cream exists, and is so good. Raspberry ice cream doesn't, and strawberry anything is inedible after living in the United States where things flavoured badly with it are epidemic. And I wouldn't be surprised if I actually would prefer to eat proper blackberries, rather than these psuedo-blackberries, but blackberries grow wild all around here so there's not much point planting them.

There are two varieties of boysenberry which I've planted.  The first "Brulee" is apparently a spreading one that takes up too much space, and so I inherited it from a garden elsewhere.

The front of the "Brulee" label.

The back of the "Brulee" label.

The "Brulee" planted.

The second variety "Tasman" was bought for $9.99NZ at The Warehouse.  It was basically a moist twig in a plastic bag.  Given you can get plants with branches in a pot for several dollars more at Mitre 10, that are probably more healthy, I think there are likely better options.

The "Tasman" label.

The "Tasman" boysenberry planted.

You'll note my hand-made label stick thingies in the photos. I'm not sure these will not fade with sun or rain, but location of plants and what kinds are also being marked on a map, in any case. Sure I could buy 10 copper things that will never fade for $20 or some such exorbitant amount, but that's just ridiculous.