Wintertime Gardening…Here in the Poconos and the Lehigh Valley, consists of Dreaming and Planning.  While you might not be getting dirt under your fingernails, this part of the Gardening Year has its own joys.  If you are trying to increase the productivity of your edible landscape, planning is essential.  

Let’s consider a few questions.  

• What can you grow that will positively impact your family’s nutrition and your food budget?  
• What foods are rich in antioxidants and cheaper to grow than to buy at the store especially if you want organic produce?  
• Which plants can you stick in the ground and harvest from for years with relatively little effort and maintenance, and zero chemicals?

BERRIES!!

How would you like to grow a berry patch for the kids, or have a plethora of organic berries for yogurts, jams, pies, and smoothies? This may be the year to consider a Backyard Berry Patch.  If you plan it out, you can plant a variety of berries and extend your organic berry harvest from early summer well into fall. 

Berries can be grown in the landscape in many creative ways.  Consider a patch of strawberries producing bowlfuls of mouthwatering berries while growing as a ground cover to crowd out weeds.  Edible groundcovers like strawberries can be grown under taller berry bushes such as blueberries, honeyberries, and more to form a Multilayer Berry Patch. 

And what about BLACKBERRIES AND RASPBERRIES?!  Oh how wonderful, delicate, plump, and juicy these fruits can be when fresh from the garden, yet so variable in quality and expensive to buy at the store.  These cane fruits love our slightly acidic soil and will pop up with ease in the wild.  Thornless cultivars are available for a painless backyard harvests from summer to fall. 

Raspberries and Blackberries can be incorporated into the edge of an edible landscape, within a food forest, or as a beautiful stand-alone raspberry patch.  Raspberry trellises are fun and beautiful too and can be built by Bear Creek Organics to keep the berry patch held upright, tamed, and manicured for maximum productivity in the landscape.  Raspberries can also be a profitable crop for small farms and homesteaders looking to generate organic berries for sale. 

Few things can match the joy on a summer morning of wandering through the raspberry patch, searching out the plump jewels of ripe yellow and red, grazing through the patch popping berry after berry into your mouth and savoring that surprising burst of sweet and tart of the perfect raspberry.  For the more disciplined, gathering a handful or bowl full to add to morning cereal or yogurt. With a big enough patch you can harvest enough to freeze or preserve.  Homemade raspberry preserves, nothing better!

Bear Creek Organics has a variety of organically managed berry plants for sale. They can also support you through the entire process of creating your unique berry patch from planning, planting, and maintaining.  

This could be the year of the BERRY.  Contact Bear Creek Organics to plan and plant healthy and delicious berries that will feed your family for years to come.

www.bearcreekorganics.com