Krys Smith

Good bot! *pets*

I worked so hard last summer (to no avail)to control the similac, poison ivy, and the virginia creeper that has bordered the left and right perimeter of my property. My property line on the left and right are divided by 1) a line of Camilla trees on my property, and now 2) a tangle of virginia creeper, similac, and poison ivy.

This problem originates from the property behind mine that is abandoned (but also belongs to my landlords). Its bad. Its a several feet deep jungle of vines. In some places the vines are deeper than I am tall. In one spot there's basically a thick wall of vines thats taller than the house beside it. The wall has formed between a partial fence and the trees.

Hard to believe that 2 years ago the guy who was living there at the time, had the yard maybe 80% cleared of vines. He worked so hard, but of course the problem wasnt as big as it is now. Its insane to me how quickly this problem has progressed.

Would appreciate any thoughts tips or advise!

Note: goats are not an option, sadly there are no goat rental services where I live and I could not find any locals willing to rent their goats. The closest gost rental service is several hours away.

Im going to make a different post under the relevant topic but wanted to include pictures here of my other vine problem.

The hay beds have done a wonderful job controlling the blackberries. The blackberries are Id say are mostly contained (at least for now) so now my pressing issue in the abandoned property that borders my backyard.

I got poison ivy again trying to pull it by hand again (with gloves and knee high boots) but this time just a small spot on my arm lol

Got a lot of work ahead of me.

Stacy Witscher wrote:Goats, goats, goats. Every discussion I've ever been involved with, the best solution to invasive blackberries has been goats. Yearly intervention with goats.

Thats what my research has told me but unfortunately I cant find anything local. I have a jungle of vines from blackberries to poison ivy and similac lol I badly need goats.

I know some people who own goats but theyre not harness trained and my yard isnt fenced in nor can I afford to fence it. I thought for sure living where I do that there would be a goat service, but alas there is not. Closest one is several hours away.

I only have maybe 1/8 acre of land that needs cleared, still less than 1 acre if I include backyard of the abandoned house behind me where the main problem is coming from.

Ive posted in local groups even trying to see if anyone knew someone who would be interested in renting goats but everyone just recommends landscapers and laughs about the goats lol

I swear a goat business would thrive here.

I wish I took a full photo of the plot today but I included close up photos of what weeds/etc grew back the past 7 weeks (very little!)

There were only two small spots where wild blackberries grew through the hay, the rest all came from underneath my porch around the edges.

In the last 7 weeks Ive not really weeded anything. A few times I ripped up a tiny bit of grass sprout or a few small weeds but thats it. It took me not even 20 minutes to weed it after 7 weeks of virtually no weeding. How amazing is that!

Unfortunately my backyard hayplot is slowly being overrun with poison ivy from the abandoned house behind us that is literally all vines several feet high. Got poison ivy twice these past 7 weeks trying to keep it from creeping into my plot. But thats a post fot another day lol

So its been 2 weeks since I put down the cardboard/hay in front of my house to suppress the wild blackberries. Nothing has tried to grow through yet (though it hasnt been long). I also added the raised bed frame (4×16), and a brick border. Im still waiting on wood and soil so for now Ive got my citrus trees and banana trees and a few other potted plants just chilling in their pots in the bed frame.

In the mean time I decided Im going to plant my thornless blackberries (TBB) in my backyard in a small space that gets sun for one half maybe 2/3ds of the day. I wont be putting a raised bed in the backyard "hay plot". Theres 2 layers of cardboard about 6 inches thick of hay. Ill add some more hay after a week or two, then Im going to dig a hole for each plant and plant them directly in the ground through the hay.  Ill eventually add a trellis and probably another brick border.

My backyard is 10xs worse than in front of my house, as far as invasive wild blackberries go. I also have 2-3 different invasive vines all over my back yard as well. Literally walk anywhere and you can pull up 20-30ft of vines from the ground in a few seconds.

So with that said it'll be very interesting to see what happens trying to grow in an area with such a bad invasive vine problem. Time will tell lol

Thanks for the advise everyone. Ill hand pull anything that grows through and pray for the best 🙏🙏  Heres to hoping they dont kill what I try to grow in my raised bed 😆.

If all else fails Im going to plant some thornless blackberries in the bed and hope their roots can out compete the wild blackberries, but, I reeeeally want to try and put sun loving veggies right there because its south facing and the berries don't do so great in the summer heat lol  

I remeasured the area and it was actually 8×22 so I expanded it by 1ft in width and then added a short border of bricks. Heres what it currently looks like.

I am attempting to kill off a large wild blackberry patch but I also really want to plant some stuff in that spot this year. I also really didnt want to use any sort of weed killer to get rid of the blackberries.

I kept the blackberries trimmed back all last summer. In the middle of the first photo you can see what grew back after not taking the weed eater to it since November 2021. I know I should have pulled them by hand all year but whats done is done 😅

So I pulled what grew back by hand, put down two layers of cardboard, and a nice thick layer of hay. The plan is to put my 4×16×1 raises bed in the middle giving me a sort of walkway around it that'll be about 3ft wide.

Im really hoping the blackberries dont grow through but Ill hand pull anything that does pop up. Im also hoping the hay doesnt attract voles so I may plant some flowers from the allium family around the bed to deter any digging friends who might be around.

The ultimate goal is to get rid of the blackberries permanently and turn the space into a ruth stout garden. But Im not holding my breath just yet, I made the mistake of letting the wild blackberries grow for 4 years so they have a very well established root system.

Any tips or advise would be appreciated! I'm a bit concerned I may be fighting a loosing battle but I guess time will tell lol

M Broussard wrote:
A point of interest here. I have done research with kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis) and kiwiberry (Actinidia arguta), and all members of the genus are dioecious, meaning that male flowers and female flowers are bourne on different plants. 'Issai' is a name used for dozens of kiwiberry cultivars as it means 'early' in Japanese. There is only a single report of self-fruitful kiwiberry with the name 'Issai' -- a mutant heptaploid individual. Most plants with the name 'Issai' are female hexaploid or tetraploid plants. To get fruit, I would strongly recommend getting a male plant so you can get pollination, regardless of what the nurserymen who sold you the plant said.

Thanks for your advise. Is there a variety you would suggest? Ill do some research tonight and see what I find.

Anne Miller wrote:I don't know anything about kiwis.

We just filled two 5 gallon buckets for tomato plants so I was wondering why 20-30 gallon planters?

A 10-gallon container weighs about 55 pounds so would you be able to easily move planters that weigh over a hundred pounds?

My husband actually brought this up and upon further thinking I decided to start them in smaller pots and work up. I have these neat black and red 50 gallon food grade barrels Im buying come April that Ill be cutting in two and I just really want to use them for something lol