Hi greenbean08
A couple of things come to mind. As for the strawberries, chipmunks ate all of my 100+ strawberries this year. Next year, IÂm considering building a hardware cloth box that even goes underneath the plants so there is no chance the chipmunks, birds, or anything else can get in. Perhaps you might want to do the same if you have problems with chipmunks or something else? As for the raspberry beds, 2' wide, 6'-8' sounds about like what I have, and that seems to work fine. Using the lawnmower to keep them in-bounds is a good thing the only issue you may have is with the distance between the rows of 2-3 raspberries can tunnel a very long way underground, and so with that small of a distance, pretty soon youÂll have co-mingling varieties. YouÂll want to read up on either spacing them out further, or using a very very deep root barrier to prevent their spread. As for yields, I donÂt really know how many raspberries I produce in a season itÂs hard to say, because the girls and I go out an eat them fresh each day. I have 10 different varieties (so as to lengthen my harvest) of beds approximately that size, and we could still eat quite a few more (because they are never ripe at the same time). Next year, IÂll be planting at least 20-30 more bare root plants. As for the plants, IÂd recommend checking out www.NourseFarms.com, though they are a little bit far away for you. As far as quantity, I think my best yields come from my blackberries. It took 3 years to get them fully producing, but I feel my 2 plants produced over 600 berries this season. IÂm going to plant some more next season, but a different variety which will be harvested at a different time. Otherwise, it would be too many to eat fresh. As for the black raspberries, these are the thorniest of the bunch and some times I wonder if they are worth it over the reds/yellows. IÂd concentrate more on the reds/yellows/and blackberries first. Good luck! -Glenn