Gardening Question From Joan:

A friend told me berries need acid, recommended coffee grounds for our listless raspberries. Another friend told my daughter that citrus is too acidic for compost. Are either of these statements true? And if so, would burying our citrus rinds in the raspberry bed be beneficial?

Answer from Pat:

Raspberries prefer a soil of Ph 5.6 to 6.2. That said, I have never found them to languish here unless they are not fed and watered adequately. The forgotten truth is that raspberries love an annual topping over their roots of aged manure in fall. Horse manure is ideal and can be put on top of the ground like a thick mulch in fall ahead of the rains and let the rains wash all the goodness into the ground as the manure ages in place. No need to age it ahead of time as long as you don’t dig it into the ground. If you can’t get anything else even bags of cow manure would do. Salts are a danger with bagged cow manure, but when winter rains are adequate this the salt is washed into the ground. Though it’s January, it’s not too late to mulch raspberries with manure since the rains aren’t here yet.

Regarding citrus rinds. If chopped up and combined with mulch or dug into soil over roots they are said to combat plant diseases, but this sounds doubtful. I would not do this around raspberries and citrus rinds would not influence pH.