From my porch looking to the cottage a couple days ago. To the left is the brush lining the bank of the bayou, my docks and a trail back in there - and the first planter showing is 10 foot long, two foot wide, foot deep; an asparagus bed (like most of my stuff, salvaged from a house for sale's garden) with trellised Muscadine grapes at the left end. (bamboo trellis which has fallen over - but holes dug for 8 ft wooden posts and a wire to hold it now it is established.) Past it to the left is another grape with 20 foot of trellis, wood poles and wire, just planted this spring and doing well. Scattered in these planters - the soil being prone to saltwater inundation when tropical storms come, and raised planters can be flushed with fresh water after flooding - the plan anyway, are 2 large blackberry vines with 20 foot spans of wire trellis each - a pomegranate, a lowquat, a wisteria that runs a wire 30 foot to the cottage porch (just started up the wire) a kiwi, and a fig. I am going to build another 5 planters, we salvage wood and I have the truck loaded with 2X6, 2 foot long boards that were torn off a porch.
I have begun propagating raspberries. This spring I found a raspberry developed in Mississippi, for Southern Mississippi climate. It is just new and the one I planted thrived, making 15 foot long vines, skinny ones, but surviving well. Raspberries do not do well here - they die in the hot summer as I have found from 3 attempts. Blackberries thrive and I have extensive rows of them, but want raspberries as they flavor and tiny seeds are fantastic in cooking. I buried tips of the vines which rooted and now want 3 planters of them out in the lawn. The other two planters I am not sure about. Of course a hurricane flood could kill them, raspberries supposedly being very delicate to salt - but give it a try.
Most of the little planters - raised beds, 2 ft X 2 ft X 1 ft deep, are hidden by the brush clumps I left - but at the end, by the cottage is my banana grove, they are 17 foot tall, to give some scale. Only 1 banana has fruit, the very hard freezes of last winter killing the rest back. Bananas being biannual you have to wrap them very well, and the freezes went on too long for my wrappings.
So berries today. Build planters, fix wheelbarrow, get loads of compost and dirt. If the rain holds off. Cooler weather is beginning and it is dark and windy out.
This is making the planters that are out there now, salvaged wood
My veg gardens are limping along. The first purple potato has broken the soil. I use fancy purple potatoes from the grocery store - they work great but take for ever to sprout. Most of my kale just never came up - even after 2 plantings, also the beans got attacked by something, as did the fall cucumbers - although they have tiny fruits. The okra keep putting out a couple, and the peppers are laden - although the fall fruits are smaller than the summer ones, but still a vital part of my gumbo soups. Turnips going great - I have the regular purple top, and then one grown just for the greens, turnip greens being a very popular Soul food thing.
The broccoli, cauliflower and B sprouts are not thriving, but are there. May have been too hot when I began them, a hard crop for the fall I find. Lettuce is going well. Mostly Black seed Simpson.