Can We Save Our Raspberries In A Day

Our raspberries are out of control, laden with weeds. Needing pruning. Oh, and this row and this row could use some compost and wood chips. Can we do it in a day? Let's find out. La la la la la, let me be free. If we want sweet succulent raspberries from the love of our labor this spring and summer, we've got to work now on this project. But first, round 3, keeping these chickens in. Yes! Yes, I remember to put them up last night. What are we gonna do about one that just doesn't go up? Problem when this one's home is probably not that high tunnel. See, it's wanting to keep coming back. Okay, okay, I did not expect that, but we'll take it. But now what? It's not in its coop. Pretty sure it has wings. Just get out, I don't care. Now they're in here, we can catch them one at a time. Happy about that. Lots of feathers on the ground. Now I'll feel better getting the very basics down before we start the project. How do you feel from yesterday? Obviously pretty good. You feel good enough to go with me? Yes, we gotta milk the cows and do the raspberries. You feeling good enough to go with me? I want a snack after this, but I wanted the milk while the boys were— Are you boys already back? Okay, but one last time to read a little one. All right, come here, I'll read you this. Did it snow? Or is it frost? Yeah, I said that was— they're machines. Just want to be doing the raspberries. I wonder how I can get the boys to start milking. There's honey and vanilla, and each have their cows, so this third cow is kind of throwing them off. Nobody wants to milk two cows. That was a big victory. We didn't even tie her up 2 and a half weeks ago. We couldn't even approach this cat— cow. Now we're milking her without a leash, just so I don't work too hard over there without me. You think you can get us some these kinds of bolts and some of these? I think we'll use the wire we have instead of these cables. We've got to do trellises over here. Get us these, but get these longer. Stage 1, it is 9:45. If we get done with this, what should— what should it be? Okay, if we get done with this by 4 PM, hopefully more like lunch, you're gonna pick up some raspberries. Okay, organic raspberries. We're gonna feast on them at 4. This has to get pruned, thinned, weeded, composted, and mulched, both these rows. You think we can do it, Bird? I guess so. First thing we need to do is trim these down to 5 feet. That way we can get in there and weed. I guess we're pruning them while we're at it too, just so it clears up so we can actually get the weeds out. Good luck! We're losing Gideon and Josiah. Get your lesson. All right, this is going to look like this by the end of the day. Well, minus the trellises. Yeah, see this offshoot right here? Yeah, you can, you can trim that. We are giving these branches room to breathe. They'll focus on the one stem and we can actually get in there and get the fruit. You got one? Good, put it in a pile. It's a big one. How many shirts you got on? 2, 3 shirts, big gloves. I got a special shirt, red shirt and a white shirt. Okay, and then whose boots are those? Okay, those might be Lily's boots. We'll take what we can get though. Okay, he insists on helping and he insists on doing the pruners. Okay, wait, Henry, let's So what I do— it's kind of the bottleneck. Yeah, you just, you just trim that. I'm gonna find something else to do until he gets bored of that. Next up, let's do— now that we can get in there a little bit better, let's weed it. Tell me when you're done and bored of that, okay? What do you think? We cleaned it up a little bit. Now let's transplant anything that's on the outskirts. In. Okay, see, there it is. Dig it in here, put it in the middle, 5 inches between something, and just cover it up. These berries want to grow so badly, they will. Mom was saying we should take some of these we pulled, cut them down, and just see. Yeah, probably take root because watch some of these. Look, is that one? Look at what some of these— some of these grow, they grow up in an arch and the tip of them starts making another plant down in the ground. This might be one. Look at this, it arched up out from there. That's another reason for crossing, I guess. And there it is, it's going to the ground two different places. That's the tip of it, had gone into the ground. Here, plant that. I believe we got it thinned, pruned, and transplanted. Now to clean up as we go. Look at this bird. Ta-da! Okay, that's a good stopping point for lunch. One more thing to do before lunch. You think we cleared out those raspberries? They can get that real quick when they have the grapples. Well, here comes the boys. Just in time for lunch. Experiment you got going, babe? I got coffee grounds in it. I'm putting some eggshells. Trying to root these two things. These are blueberries? These are blueberries. They were like on a— And what are you gonna do if they do root? I'm gonna plant them. Nice. And then instead of banana peel, that's the other thing that internet said about. You'd never have to buy blueberries again if this works. I know. Well, there's also, we could put them in soil with like other things. But I'm just giving this a whirl because I didn't want to walk down to the greenhouse. Alright! We just had lunch. It's a beautiful day. We are taking advantage of this beauty. The machine is warming up. Do you think it's a good idea to have lots of friends and not see any of them that much, but see like friends in general? Like, say, 3 different friends in a month instead of seeing one friend 3 times in a month. Which one is better? I always thought that having a best friend is the best. One good friend, 2 good friends, 3 good friends. A man of many friends comes to ruin. Is that what you wanted to hear? I don't know, I'm just wondering. You could just go deeper with less friends. That's the secret, folks. Quantity time together, and then you have beautiful moments like that where they ask for life advice. That wouldn't necessarily happen on a curated staged date while she's at school all day and I'm at work, and then we come together and expect to have an intimate relationship. No, those organic moments, rich moments, happen in the quantity time. You ready, Fast Freddy? I'm ready. If y'all want the raspberries, I think Josiah got us some. Yes, they're not our raspberries. No, they are not grown with love for ourselves, but these are. When we munch on these in June, they're going to be so special because we love them. So good too. Yeah, there's a point that Tasha McBride— I'm, I'm, I'm reading a book she's come out with. I'm writing a blurb for it, so the book's not out yet, but that's one thing she said: talk to the plants. We, we love you. You're gonna, you're gonna do well for us. You're gonna— we're gonna take care of you and you're gonna take care of us. And do this out of love, this work. I'm guilty of doing this out of practicality for sure. And when there's nothing wrong with that, but, uh, I want to put some love into this because then when we eat this, we're going to be eating that love. I think that's something that has been grown out of love and care for the people who are going to eat it, which are in this case ourselves. I think it's special. Okay, we've only got one shovel and it's a flat one. Gideon, will you go get some spade shovels? Put down a layer of compost. It's already pretty rich, so just put it— there you go. Was that love or was that— well, I was trying to see if it would break the clump up. Didn't break the clump up. We have composted. Looks really good, feels really right. Our spring selves will thank us. Now wood chips. Okay, 4 inches, guys. Adios, wood chip. That took no time. The time was definitely in pruning, thinning, weeding. Mom, you want some raspberries? Taste of what's to come. We did it, we got it done before 4. Everybody enjoy. Are you not eating? Oh yeah. Did you get a sour one? No, it's a dopamine hit when you get a nice sugary one. Maybe that's why we like raspberries so much. They're unpredictable. They all taste a little different. Wait, it's not like a banana. You can look at a banana and know exactly what it's going to taste like based on its color. Yeah, happy day.