Rototilling? I learned it's essential to mow first.

[California]

I have a tight spot between fence and lane that's a row of apple trees choked by Himalayan blackberry jungle. Every year I mow there, to make access to the trees for pruning then again for harvest. I mostly have to back in around each tree, there's no room to maneuver.

This year I had the rototiller attached so I thought I could use it to rip out blackberry jungle.

Big mistake! The blackberry canes didn't slice, they wrapped around the tiller's shaft intact, roots and all. They are tough like rope. I pretty much had to cut and tug on each cane individually. Two hours to clear the snarl.

Tools: I carry that linoleum knife jammed into conduit for cutting out grass stems, that works well. But not this time.

The pliers were to grasp each cane and avoid the many thorns. I soon got out the reciprocating saw to try to break up each cane. But they were wrapped so tight that even after cut, each segment was near impossible to pull right out. And not all were cut, many had just jumped around when moved by the saw.

I'll bet the Indians used to make good ropes out of this stuff. After shaving off the thorns. It's tough material.

Don't Do This!!!

Comment on that tiller - yeah I was better looking 45 years ago, too.

 

[bmaverick]

When I have to begin a NEW garden plot, never disc'ed nor tilled before, I brush mow, and then brush mow scalping.

 

[5030]

I start out with Roundup Ultra Max and wait a week and then till the aftermath.

 

[CalG]

A Burnz-o-matic hand tourch is a great aid to clearing stuff tangled in tines.

You don't really need to "get to it", just get close!

 

[California]

I start out with Roundup Ultra Max and wait a week and then till the aftermath.

Roundup isn't going to make a Blackberry jungle like this, ready to rototill after a week!

Here are a couple of old photos. First, guests picking berries along a different fence line. The apple trees I'm clearing for access, are buried in a mess like this.

The Blackberry vines are well rooted. If mowed flat, they come right back next year.

Himalayan Blackberries taste great but they are an unwelcome invasive species on the west coast. They can fill up any vacant land.

 

[California]

One year (photo 2009) I tried the backhoe for ripping out blackberry jungle that had overwhelmed a row of trees many years ago down in back where it's hard to disc. Note the grotesque limb shapes struggling to get out of the mess into sunlight. My effort was wasted, the following year the mess grew right back.

 

[rontaki]

I have a tight spot between fence and lane that's a row of apple trees choked by Himalayan blackberry jungle. Every year I mow there, to make access to the trees for pruning then again for harvest. I mostly have to back in around each tree, there's no room to maneuver.

This year I had the rototiller attached so I thought I could use it to rip out blackberry jungle.

Big mistake! The blackberry canes didn't slice, they wrapped around the tiller's shaft intact, roots and all. They are tough like rope. I pretty much had to cut and tug on each cane individually. Two hours to clear the snarl.

Tools: I carry that linoleum knife jammed into conduit for cutting out grass stems, that works well. But not this time.

The pliers were to grasp each cane and avoid the many thorns. I soon got out the reciprocating saw to try to break up each cane. But they were wrapped so tight that even after cut, each segment was near impossible to pull right out. And not all were cut, many had just jumped around when moved by the saw.

I'll bet the Indians used to make good ropes out of this stuff. After shaving off the thorns. It's tough material.

Don't Do This!!!

View attachment 3539715


Comment on that tiller - yeah I was better looking 45 years ago, too.

And probably just as thorny?

 

[CalG]

Would a flail mower be an option?

Perhaps you could rent one to try.

 

[California]

And probably just as thorny?

D**** thorny!

Nasty plentiful thorns with something that festers painfully if you snag on it and imbed the extreme microscopic tip in your fingertip. Right at the spot you need for grasping anything.

My guests pick daintily and fearfully. I've found the secret - a welding glove on my left hand/arm, reaching in and pulling out a productive cane so I can harvest it without my picking hand getting trapped by thorns inside the thorny bush. Then dropping the berries into a small bucket hitched to my belt. I'm productive maybe 4x what the others are doing.
I can several dozen jars of Wild Blackberry Jam every year.

 

[California]

Would a flail mower be an option?

Perhaps you could rent one to try.

My rotary mower does a sufficient job of mowing it flat. One year I re-opened an abandoned terrace way down in the back of the orchard, by flattening jungle with the front loader then mowing. That created access so several guests had plenty of berries to pick. It grew back in a year.

I went ahead with the rototiller this one time yesterday just to try it, thinking tilling below the surface would halt regrowth. Big mistake. It uprooted lots of material but didn't slice or bury any of it.

 

[ponytug]

@California I, too mow before rototilling.

I love blackberries, but they are a really invasive weed.

In the FWIW category, I largely eliminated our previously perennial poison hemlock by waiting for a drizzly wet day in winter and then used a million BTU propane torch to steam the plants to death. I have no idea if it would work on blackberries, but it is essential that the plants are green and wet, otherwise you just burn them, which doesn't seem to get the roots. I've used dark colored tarps with a scattering of old aluminum soda cans to create a "sterilizer". Get the soil damp first, and then spread the cans and tarp, weighing down the edges. It gets mighty warm underneath.

All the best,

Peter

 

[California]

Just for fun I went back down this evening and made some photos.

This photo illustrates why I had to back the rototiller in to reach each apple tree. (Usually the rotary mower). I wish now we had located that new deer fence where I could drive the little tractor behind this abandoned row of trees. We had located the fence for the best headland - turn around space - for larger equipment in the enclosed orchard. Not recognizing how this would orphan the outer row. Blackberries took over immediately.

Tilled, Blackberries gone! But later discovered they were wrapped around the tiller.

Oh that's why my mower, and this time the rototiller, makes such a racket when I get down here.

More apple trees cleared. Well sort of. This will be sufficient for harvest.
They were inaccessible (Blackberry thorns!) before this tilling.
Next time I'll use the rotary mower. It doesn't load up like the rototiller.

Believe it or not that jungle by the telephone pole was mowed flat last year, completely gone, by the property manager for the parcel next to me down the easement. For his wealthy client who visits only a few times per year. This year we haven't seen that 'neighbor' yet. Everything grew right back to what it was.

I have no responsibility to maintain this easement along the front 16 ft of my parcel. I simply can't prevent whatever the folks beyond want to do, to not be landlocked. The neighbors down at the end are great so I do some of the maintenance for their benefit.

 

[careyo63]

Elec. circular saw blade I have attached to a weed eater, Super easy to use. All the small growth I cut at the soil. Easier for me to remove and discard it to burn piles then cut it down to width of the FEL. bucket etc.. My BH. is a Brush cutter. Brutal!! not setup to cut pastures. Vines and Limbs! You see and know ran over it but that's about it. Set up like a stump jumper!. I've use it for Yrs. and know it's old. International Tag is still pinned on it. I use it for counter balance no P.Steering. When I had it on the Yanmar I had to be real careful when lifted. Front wheels would come of the ground. I actually measure the Width and just over 4'. I would get roots around the tiller from the garden. Esp when I first started using it. Wrap around the tine shaft I found the best way was hand held clippers. And pull it out in rope lengths!

 

[2manyrocks]

Will keep coming back until the roots are removed.

 

[bmaverick]

He needs goats.

 

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

Ixna on the flail mower. It is horrible in thick tangled vines. I have an area that was overcome with wysteria from who know were. I tried cutting close to it to keep it at bay. The vines got in and became like iron cabled stopping the flail in its tracks.

One of my retirement projects will be to methodically go around and cut the stems a few inches above ground and roundup it. It's not an area I plan to grow eating stuffs. I have thought about torching it but its imbedded in the wood line and I'm afraid it would get out of hand quickly. But I think about it maybe with a south wind that may help... ??

 

[careyo63]

How thick it gets here! On one of the weed eaters I use multiple types of blades. 3 different. 3 Blade triangle Lawn mower type works but I use a saw blade for the thick growth.. I've cleared areas like this several times. That's the nasty neighbor house if you look hard. I leave this patch on purpose. 

 

[SirMaxwell]

Personally I use the Grapple to rip it out by the handfuls, pile it and burn it. Then simply mow whatever mess is left. As long as you keep it cut for a year or two most of it dies off. I think it fatigues the plant. That also keeps me from being scratched to death during the process. The big trick is keeping up on it. I just cleared an old pasture that was let go for a couple years and I would say I ripped out about 3-5 acres of blackberries, intermixed with crap trees, and all sorts of crazy. Good luck.