Dawn419
Almost Self-Reliant
That was a good idea using a tomato cage as a support for it. 
We had planned on getting into our big patch last winter to thin it out and train most of them to wire. Winter hit and we never got it done. When spring rolled around, we figured we'd get it done but then all it did was rain and when the rain quit, summer showed up early. 
We've gone from one extreme to the other, so far this year. I need to get back up to the patch. We checked on it two weeks ago and had a lot of fruit setting and still had blooming going on so hopefully we'll have another nice crop of blackberries this year. Just had a nice rain come in this evening (finally) which I was glad to see. Our big patch is too far away from a water source so it's a do or die situation for them for the time being. We thought we wouldn't get any berries last year due to lack of rain and got some just in time for the fruit to ripen nicely so we may get lucky again. 
Thanks for the info on the "water shield". We have some tin that I can put up temporarily in his favorite spots at the herb garden. It's south-facing so it'll heat up good and hopefully help. We haven't had a male dog in 14 years and I forgot what it was like. LOL He's good with the birds so I can't complain too much.
Dawn
P.S. What is the Hot Springs area like? We're finally getting to a point at our place that we'd like to make some time for exploring and Skip will have to be in Little Rock in about 4 - 5 months.
We had planned on getting into our big patch last winter to thin it out and train most of them to wire. Winter hit and we never got it done. When spring rolled around, we figured we'd get it done but then all it did was rain and when the rain quit, summer showed up early. We've gone from one extreme to the other, so far this year. I need to get back up to the patch. We checked on it two weeks ago and had a lot of fruit setting and still had blooming going on so hopefully we'll have another nice crop of blackberries this year. Just had a nice rain come in this evening (finally) which I was glad to see. Our big patch is too far away from a water source so it's a do or die situation for them for the time being. We thought we wouldn't get any berries last year due to lack of rain and got some just in time for the fruit to ripen nicely so we may get lucky again. Thanks for the info on the "water shield". We have some tin that I can put up temporarily in his favorite spots at the herb garden. It's south-facing so it'll heat up good and hopefully help. We haven't had a male dog in 14 years and I forgot what it was like. LOL He's good with the birds so I can't complain too much.
Dawn
P.S. What is the Hot Springs area like? We're finally getting to a point at our place that we'd like to make some time for exploring and Skip will have to be in Little Rock in about 4 - 5 months.
