vege/tomato garden issue - I am gROOTS
 

Hi:
I'm pretty sure I have rediscovered the problem why our veges begin okay then just don't grow (I suspected this last year in 2022), and I have no idea what to do. No clue what these roots are, but do suspect raspberry or blackberry though.

The image with all the roots is me simply moving my hand around in a 1-2ft circle and collecting the roots from the soil in the pictured raised bed. The clay-lump lifted by fork is from a different sort-of-raised bed. It's the main one, I forgot to snap a photo of it.

First thought was weed cloth then 6-12" fresh soil on top, but that seems temporary with roots eventually growing through it anyway and the plastic breaks down.

Abandon these beds? Convert to container grown?

Down here, me have all sorts of plants that spread really fine roots in our raised beds. We replace the soil annually, but they come back quickly,

The boxes (cheap crap cedar) have decomposed enough that I'll replace them over the winter, so I'm planning on using PVC lumber and elevating the boxes about 6" on legs.

Are you trying to grow the berries or are they weeds? If you are trying to grow them, I would grow them in a container and make certain the birds cannot get the berries to spread them (especially if they are blackberries). If the berries are weeds, getting rid of them would be the solution. You might need to forgo growing in the beds for a year while you take care of the issue, though.

Leafmite sorry I wasn't clear: post 168: Fruits and veggies?

I believe the roots are why we have no luck growing anything in the ground. I don't know where the roots are coming from, I suspect from blackberries/raspberries, but could be other things. Don't know what to do now.

---------- Post added at 08:08 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:05 AM ----------

Ray: the main bed (not pictured) is not really a raised bed, it's just ground with a border around it, and sort of raised to deal with the slope.

Blackberry roots can be nasty but typically only after the plants have been established for awhile. Your plants look too new to have roots like that, unless you cut them to the ground recently? If there are any palms/cycads/cypress/sugar maple (aka spiky ball trees) in your yard or the next 2 yards in any direction, that would be my suspect.

Trenching along the edge of your yard down to a depth of 12” (or more) every 5-10 years is the only way to keep invading tree roots at bay. An old work farm plot had to be abandoned because of cypress roots. They outcompeted EVERYTHING we planted within 50 feet.

The berry plants you see on the edge have been there 20+ years to varying levels of growth, sometimes they are cut back, sometimes pulled out, originally grew quite dense - the raised bed you see is maybe 4-5 years old, and the berries were pulled/cut out at that time. The main bed, which is not pictured, is also about 20 years, it's been amended with lots of organic materials yet still is a complete block of clay. It's depressing.

There are a lot of trees outside the two fenced areas, including cypress, palm trees, various fruit trees, etc. This is the middle of a slope that's relatively flat.

I'm not sure how we're going to trench with rock-hard dirt, but I guess that is something we can try if we decide to continue. Maybe I can borrow a jack hammer with a spade on it.

Crud. The more I think this through, the more abandoning a normal vege garden is the best solution, and we should just work out some sort of container gardening.