Raspberries and seed tips

So here is the latest from our garden. Our first raspberry. These little plants we picked up on clearance at Home Depot later in the season. We didn’t them to live let alone produce the same year they went in.

A few tips. If we have some time to kill or if we happen to go to one of the big box centers we ALWAYS take a look in the nursery area. They will mark down plants that don’t “look good or are on the edge of death. You can usually pick them up relatively cheap like 75-90% off. I think these plants were regularly $9.99 each and we picked them up for $0.99. We bought all they had and spread around yard. Worst case they died and went into compost. We asked the nursery manager if we bought them all would he give them to us at 0.99 rather than the 1.99 they were asking. What is worse they could say, no?

A little aged horse poo, compost, and some mulch on top. We set in the ground and watered daily for a week, then every other day. For about 2 weeks and let nature takes its course. They all took off, and are doing well without any more intervention from us.

Here is another tip. We buy all our seeds at reduced price. Again the big box stores will reduce seeds at the end of the season (Around July). The seeds are dated and they usually do not sell older seeds the following year. We picked up over 300 packets of seeds from $0.01-$0.10 this year. They will store for long periods if kept dry and cool. Some even do better in the freezer/refrigerator. We have even found seed packets in the back of closets and drawers that were from 5-8 years earlier and plant. What is the worst that will happen. Sometimes they grow and sometimes not. Never hurts to try. But always have plan B. I wouldn’t put family food production solely on those seeds we found.