Thinking of adding blackberry bushes to my garden....

Quoted from Mart: Last year was the first year for mine !! I had enough from one vine to last us all winter and still have a couple of bags left !! I will make jelly from last years berries and freeze this years fresh crop !!'....

What variety did you grow Mart? I'm just curious

 

Blackberries

Daisy, I'm glad you opened this subject. A neighbor grows blackberries in a rasied bed and picks them all summer from just one clump of canes. She shared with us this spring. We took about 5 canes. I set them out in a sunny area and did nothing else with them. Maybe I should water them?
I picked wi;d blackberries as a child and have great memories of blakberry cobbler. Oh yum!

 

Re: Blackberries

All caine fruit like some poo and mulch. Water when its drouthy will be repaid with bigger/more berries.

 

This is my first year growing them, and have been doing a little reading up. Water them, and keep them mulched. They do not like competing with weeds. You will also have to learn how to thin the dead cane's out so the new one's can produce.

 

I just took this picture of our "Chester Thornless Blackberry Bush" from a house window. (It's just to the left of the telephone pole). The canes grew large last year, and I realized that the second year canes bear fruit while the new growth is for next years crop. We had a lot of blackberries last year but this year the second year canes are taller than me!


Chester Thornless Blackberry Bush ( photo / image / picture from SevenTooMany's Garden )

 

Our's are planted in a compost area. I am disappointed that I have to wait a year for berries, but Rome wasn't built in a day?

 

GrowingPains, for the good stuff it always seems you have to wait. At least with a Blackberry bush there isn't too much required except for keeping it watered in times of no rain. We haven't done much and ours seems to take care of itself and deliver a good supply of berries.

 

Growing pains -- there were wild blackberries all around my neighborhood as a kid too. We'd ride our bikes around and do other kidstuff till we were tired and then find a loaded blackberry bush and eat as many as we wanted, right off the bush, germs and dirt and all. Yum. Good memories.

 

isolating at least 150 meters from any cultivated raspberry and destroy all wild brambles and raspberries in the planting area. Ne pas planter à la suite d'une culture de pomme de terre, de tomate, de piment, d'aubergine ou de fraisier pour éviter le flétrissement verticillien. Do not plant in the wake of a culture of potato, tomato, peppers, eggplant and strawberry to avoid verticillium wilt. L'égouttement superficiel doit être parfait de façon à ne jamais avoir de saturation du sol dans la région des racines. The surface drainage must be perfect so you do not have the saturation of the soil in the root zone.

My Blackberry :



( photo / image / picture from J@ck's Garden )

 

This posting has more to do with the pruning and the use of a trellis than planting per se, but it is info that you can use later on.

When fall arrives, it's time to arrange and prune your blackberry plants. The
method here is for plants that you have planted along a single, two-wire trellis, but
the principle is the same if you have constructed a double trellis system.

General ConsiderationsTwo words that you hear when talking about growing blackberry plants are
"pruning" and "training". These terms are related, but absolutely two different
aspects of care.
Pruning refers to cane cutting to promote new growth, to remove diseased or
damaged plant segments and to control crop load and fruit quality.
Training refers to positioning canes to allow for good air flow, light exposure,
harvesting and management.
A trellis has 3-5 sturdy poles with wire strung between them at heights of 1m (3 ft)
and 1,5m (5 ft) from ground level.
The lower wire is for primocanes (first year growth that has fruit buds) and the
upper wire for floricanes (second year growth which blooms, fruits and then dies).


STEP 1 (...in the fall)
Use strong and sharp pruning shears or smaller, hand-sécateurs to remove the old
floricanes from the past season. Cut them right back to the crown of the plant (See foto directly above).Remove thin and weak-looking new growth as well. Remove segments or
whole canes that have been damaged or are diseased in some way.
Leave the lower wire vacant for 3-5 primocanes which will develop during the
coming summer. Secure these new canes to the lower wire fanning them left and
right. These will become the fruit-bearing canes for the following season.




STEP 2
Transfer the long (new) canes that you had tied onto the lower trellis wire (B) in
the preceding season to the upper wire(s) (A), fanning them out left and right.
Prune their side branches back to between 12 and 30cm or 2-3 bud sites (foto immediately above).

STEP 3
Gather and bind removed canes for removal and destruction. Clean the ground at
the base of your plants, removing all debris from pruning and clipping. Apply
fertilizer of some sort (10-10-10 NPK, e.g.) at the base of the plants in long lines
either side of the row(s) of plants-- scratch-in and mulch.

STEP 4
During the late spring mid-summer months your plants will produce new canes.
These are to be tied-in on the lower of the two trellis wires (B) (which have
become vacant the previous autum) and allowed to grow until mid or late July. At
this time you clip-off the ends to a length of ± 122cm (48 inches). Clipping-off the
ends will cause growth hormones to be released and side branches will develop
and grow.

Before and after:
Before pruning...


After pruning...


SUMMARYThis way, all fruitbaring canes are tied onto the top wire so that the berries are at
a comfortable hight for picking.
All new canes are tied onto the bottom wire and get transferred to the top wire in
the fall when all old canes have been removed from it.

Good luck with your blackberry adventure.

 

As usual... a great and informative post from Sjoerd!
Have you grown any of the "upright" varieties?

 

Hi Cheryl--These bushes are upright thornless variety. As a rule, thornless bushes grow more upright than traditional blackberry sorts.

The ones featured here were mine, but I gave them to a fellow gardner and showed her how to take care of them at the end of the first year.
It is not easy to see (because there is not a person standing there), but these bushes are well above my head and I am 6ft, 3in tall.

I do not know the type of blackberry it is because it was already in place when I took over my lottie.
I have also had Loganberry and raspberry bushes....they have all been fased out now and blueberry bushes are my "bush thing" now.

Thanks so much for your very nice comment.

 

wow sjoerd, thaniks so much for all that info on pruning and trellising. i have been very confused about both. this will help us alot.

ours are thornless and do grow way above our heads, too. last year i had bamboo teepees that held them up.

 

Hey Bunkie--I am glad that you found the posting useful. I know people that have trellises like this that are perhaps eighteen feet long (not on my complex).

As for the pruning and tieing-in of the canes--well, once you get started properly, then it is pretty simple to make the adjustments twice a year.

Just remember: Remove the top ones, then bring the bottom ones up to the top.
The then empty bottom wire is there for the new canes which form.

Blossoms followed by fruit occurs on second year growth (not on the new canes).

I can see that a tee-pee would work well, in terms of support, but I would not be pleased with the degree of air flow, and having to reach in to harvest.
As always, its what works best for you, right?

 

righto sjoerd! i'll have to take some pics this year...