Raspberry Revival Part 1: Food Forest Plans with Tulamagic
A Birthday Gift for My KY Homestead
Hello, fellow growers! 🌱 Welcome to the first chapter of my Raspberry Revival series—a tale of dreams, a sprinkle of worry, and a hefty dose of adaptation. Let’s rewind to late February 2025 when I treated myself to a birthday gift to jazz up my Kentucky homestead. I had my heart set on my beloved PNW Tulameen raspberries, but ouch—$20 per plant was a budget buster! Plus, my research hinted that Kentucky’s heat might zap them. So, enter Tulamagic raspberries from Holland Bulbs (I am not an affiliate). When I reached out to the company they were kind but said all we can say about where they source Tulamagic is per the website, which didn’t specify bare root fruit). I had ordered their flower bulbs before and knew I could trust them. So I began dreaming of planting them in March to continue to build sustainable farming using intercropping methods to create an awesome food forest.
Is a crossing between Autumn Bliss x Tulameen. they have Delicious, intensive raspberry aroma with a high sugar content. Reference Here
Sustainable Gardening with Fruit Tree Guild
Sustainable farming means adopting practices that preserve soil health, enhance biodiversity, and reduce the usage of non-renewable resources.(link Here)
Composting, Crop rotation, Water Conservation, Natural pest control methods, Plants and Biodiversity in Your Garden are a few (link Here)
🍎 Imagine this: a row of fruit trees on my property, with daffodils, native pollinators, garlic, chives, rhubarb, and marigolds forming a cozy guild beneath—nature’s own pest-control squad, every sustainable gardener’s dream team for my fruit tree guild! My plan? Nestle the Tulamagic raspberries in a line between those trees, a step toward my bigger food forest vision. It’s all about growing together, folks, with a dash of biodiversity to keep the homestead humming. But here’s the twist—I’m a bit jittery. Tulamagic isn’t listed in the UK Kentucky guide, unlike Tulameen once was.
A permaculture guild is a grouping of plants that supports a central element—such as a fruit tree—for maximum harvest and use of space. link here
🐛 What’s changed? Could it be the Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD) pest invasion that hit the region in 2012? I reached out to my amazing County Extension Office agent, who shared some entomology wisdom via email on combating them. Now I’m more curious and cautious than worried—onward we go, with more to learn! Another knot in the rope, indeed.
Organic gardening methods include choosing a June Bearing variety to get ahead of the bugs, use a netting – must be a fine mesh, with openings of less than 1 mm, there are studies on using natural predators, but Spraying is still the most effective, an organic product containing spinosad is recommended
Adapting: Container Gardening After Surgery
🤕 Then—bam!—back surgery hit. Ugh, my third life-changing surgery in a year! “Just keep swimming,” I told myself with a deep breath and eye roll. My raspberry plants were due at the end of March according to Holland Bulb spring shipping schedule, and I’d planned to build a raised bed to get them in on time. Nope! They arrived the day before surgery. I was thrilled to unwrap them—five sticks in paper cups, one with leaves. The packing was not pretty but it was on point for recycling. I rather have useful packing over fancy packing any day.
💔 My heart sank at the sight of the sticks, but I was not going to give up. Raspberry plant shoots grow from the roots, so Let’s wait and see if they grow, take the blooms with the pecks! With just hours to spare, I channeled my inner gardening guru (shoutout to Gardening with Leon from YouTube) and set up containers. NOT exactly his style, I did not have time to get it all set up. But I was able to leave room in the bottom of the container for airflow to keep roots happy, praying they’d survive two weeks until I could get out and check on them. Then, thank you, Mother Nature—it started raining, and rained off and on for 10 days, giving them a gentle start.
Sustainable Food Forest is My Goal
🐌 This adaptive container tip is my current lifeline, but I’m eyeing raised beds for their final spot—raspberries hate wet feet, per UK gardening wisdom. I will implement a shade cloth to shield them from Kentucky’s summer blaze, and the netting to help with the DSF. This is just the beginning of my journey from ordering to sustainable agriculture with intercropping in that food forest dream.
Stick with me, let’s grow together, and grab my free PDF on chicken-safe plants for more homestead hacks at the link in below. 🐔
