Jonah Struan

This will be my second full spring in this house.

Last year’s project was to destroy my front lawn. Check! It was pretty small so it was an easy first start while I sorted out how to tackle some bigger issues in the backyard. Now my, used to be a patch of spotty lawn, has two columnar apple saplings, two blueberry bushes, two smallish raised beds (for the most sun-loving vegetables), and a rosemary bush. I’m going to try growing chamomile in the space left.

This year’s ambition is to tear up at least part of the lawn/moss in the backyard and plant a few vegetables back there. I did manage to get some elderberry bushes planted back there already. Oh, and continue the contest against the blackberries in the corner. Maybe start training some of it up some lattice.

The ultimate goal (some day): To completely eliminate all the lawn; maintain a large garden that I can start preserving from for winter; get a smallish nut tree; keep chickens; and maybe add couple more small fruit trees. Also, water it all completely from rain barrels (should be totally doable here in the PNW).

Oh my goodness! I am overwhelmed with information!! Thank you all for responding and giving me a lot of directions to explore. I’m going to be spending a lot of time looking into all this.

I imagine myself wander local hardware and farm supply glove displays with my phone in one hand, on the hunt for these many suggestions! I might even just get my partner, who happens to do chainmail as a hobby, to custom make me some gauntlets!

Once I get these suckers beat back and trained I hope to post some pictures!

Hi All,

(My first post! Woot!)

One pointy corner of my fence (think like the point of a piece of pie) is right against a blackberry bramble that the county seems to be using as an approximately 12’ barrier between a walking/biking corridor and the yards of the houses that line the corridor.

I’m looking for help in two things.

One is glove recommendations to deal with chopping back the canes each year. I have small hands with stubby fingers (usually between a woman’s small, that best fits my fingers and medium that best fit my palm) and pretty beefy and short forearms (the widest part being 32cm). I can’t for the life of me find any kind of gauntlet type gloves to fit me! I’m figuring I’ll have to do some customization to get anything to work. Any recommendations on thorn resistant gloves and ways to modify them for my particular hand/arm variation would be very welcome! I do very basic sewing but I haven’t done any leather-based sewing.

Two, whether you all think these berries would be safe to harvest considering the following details: I know one neighbor uses pesticides to keep their yard from being encroached on. This touches about 3 feet of shared fence. The other neighbor does yearly chopping back. It seems the county keeps the blackberries off the walking path through a combination of a heavy mowing twice a year. I haven’t seen any spraying in the two years I’ve been here. So, considering those factors, do you think, if I train a small bit of the blackberries, away from the pesticide fence and with a “spray barrier” to minimize drift, that we could harvest a bit safely?

Thanks so much for looking at my post!
I am so glad I found this community and I look forward to learning a bunch from you all!