Grow Blackberries

When the blackberries come on, you know it's time for summer. Though they grow wild in many areas of the world, the cultivated varieties produce distinctively dark berries that are juicy and sweet, and usually larger than their wild cousins. You can grow them in most kinds of soil, and in most regions with warm summers and relatively mild winters. You can learn to plant an appropriate variety, train the shoots, and care for your blackberry plants throughout the growing season to give yourself the hardiest crop. See Step 1 for more information.

Steps

Selecting Varieties

  1. Select a variety appropriate to the climate. The wild Himalayan blackberry is a tenacious invasive species in some parts of the western United States, but cultivated varieties tend to be juicer, larger, and more firm than wild berries. If you're going to plant some, it makes sense to pick one of these varieties, wherever you live, based on the structure of the cane, its growth pattern, and whether or not the variety has thorns. There are hundreds of strains and varietals to choose from, but knowing the basic categories will help you to make an informed decision.
    • If you live in a region with very cold winters, it's best to select an erect variety with thorns. These stand up to the elements the best and will provide the most solid-possible base for your climate.
    • If you live in a region with very dry windy summers, it's best to plant trailing varieties, which will stand up to the elements in especially harsh high-desert climates.
    • Most varieties are able to grow in regions with at least 200-300 hours per season under {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}, including USDA climate zones 7, 8, and 9 in the United States.[1]
  2. Consider the hardiness of trailing or training varieties. Traditional training varieties grow much like the wild blackberry, shooting out suckers and sprawling all over the place, which means they'll need to be trellised with wires and trained along them to control the growth. Old fruiting canes will need to be removed, but new primocanes (new growth) will not need to be pruned.[2] Trailing varieties often struggle in regions with especially cold winters, and won't fruit until their second year of growth.
    • Evergreen, Marion, Obsidian, Chester, Hull, and Black Diamond are all popular varieties of trailing blackberry.
  3. Consider the easy planting of upright, erect, or semi-erect varieties. These varieties of blackberry grow more like hedges, and will need to be supported with a T-trellis or a post of some sort. These varieties are easier to control and contain, but require vigorous pruning, shooting stiff new cane straight from the crown of the plant, rather than trailing along the ground. Many of these varieties will produce fruit in the first year of planting. Thorny erect varieties are the hardiest in cold climates.[3]
    • Illini, Kiowa, Shawnee, Apache, Triple Crown, and Natchez are all popular varieties of erect and semi-erect blackberry.
  4. Weigh the benefits of thornless berries. Trailing, upright, and hybrid varieties are all now available in thorny or thornless strains, meaning that you can make your harvest a whole lot easier on your fingers. Thornless varieties do tend to be somewhat more sensitive to colder weather, making the thorny varieties a much hardier choice for most climates.[4]

Planting Blackberries

  1. Select a planting location. Blackberries will grow in most kinds of fertile soil, especially slightly acidic soil (between 5.5 and 7 pH) that is rich in humus. Especially sandy or clay-rich soil is less desirable. Select a planting location with good drainage and maximum exposure to sunlight to make sure your berries ripen evenly, though some thornless varieties are prone to "sunburn," so some shade isn't a worry in especially sunny regions.
    • Don't plant blackberries near nightshade, or members of the nightshade family, including tomato, potato, and pepper. Verticillium wilt, a common blackberry blight, can be transmitted through the soil.
    • Don't plant blackberries in the same vicinity of other brambles, or near any wild-growing blackberry. Start your blackberries on a fresh site to avoid common diseases that can be transmitted.
    • In colder climates, blackberries can flourish and ripen more quickly inside a greenhouse. Though they're self-fertile, they'll still benefit from cross-pollination, meaning that it's a good idea to grow two different varieties, if you grow them indoors. They'll need to be exposed to at least 200 hours below {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}, but kept between 60 and 70 F when inside.[5]
  2. Prepare your planting plot. When you've selected your plot, you'll want to dig into the earth at least a foot and till the soil of your plot thoroughly to aerate. Mix in a {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} layer of manure and a {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} layer of organic soil conditioner to fertilize.
    • It's usually best to start small. Because blackberries can really take over in the proper climate (long, dry summers), it's easy to overwhelm yourself with berries accidentally. If you want to test out how blackberries will do in your area, start with a single erect variety, placed somewhere with room to expand. Plant more rows if you don't get the kind of production you're interested in after starting with one.
    • If you're going to plant several rows of blackberry, space the rows between 6 and 10 feet apart. Erect plants can be closer together than trailing varieties. You can plant your trellis poles before you put in your plants, or after. Trellising is discussed in the following section.
  3. Plant blackberry canes in late fall or early spring. If you live somewhere with very cold winters, it's best to wait until spring to put your blackberries in the ground. In areas with more moderate winters, planting them in the fall is appropriate to give them a chance of setting for the growing season.
    • Blackberry plants should be set into the ground about {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}, and spaced between 3 and 6 feet apart from one another. Upright or erect plants can be closer than trailing varieties, which should be more like {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} apart from one another. Add as much as a gallon of water upon planting the canes,
    • Blackberry plants purchased from greenhouses will typically have {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} of dormant growth sticking out of the top of a ball of soil protecting the root system. They won't always look like the prettiest plant, but will start shooting cane vigorously in the spring.
    • Buy your blackberry starts from a greenhouse in your area, a few days before you want to put them in the ground. If you mail-order your starts, try to order your plants a month or two before you want to put them in the ground, and keep the roots moist by setting them in your garden plot and mounding some soil around the root system if you need to wait to put them in the ground.
  4. Water blackberries {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} weekly and consider mulching in the spring. Blackberry plants might need between 1 and 2 inches of water per week, depending on the climate. If you've got a large plot of berries, installing drip-line irrigation can be a good option, while smaller plots will be fine to hand-water. In especially dry or windy climates, mulching can help to avoid erosion.
    • Mulching with pine bark, pine needles, or plastic weed matting can help to protect the soil in the immediate area surrounding the blackberries from weeds and erosion. About {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} of any type of mulch will be sufficient for blackberry.[6]

Training and Pruning

  1. Install a post system for erect plants. Plant posts about {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} tall adjacent to each erect plant, with a cross-bar about {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} long, placed about {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} high on the post. As the canes grow up, you you can train the primocane suckers (new growth) around the post to help support the weight of the canes, leaves, and berries.
    • Erect and semi-erect blackberry varieties will mostly grow straight up, sometimes quite high. To promote growth, it's important to use a post-system of trellising, as you would roses, or another snaking vine. You want to give the blackberry something to climb on. Typically, you won't need to train or trellis erect plants in the first year.[7]
    • Blackberry posts don't need to be elaborate. Plant along existing fences, or use old fence posts to support blackberry. Ideally, posts will be about wrist-thick, so 2 x 2 boards would work fine.
  2. Install trellis wire for trailing blackberries. When planting trailing varieties, it's important to give them a horizontal avenue on which to cling. Plant {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} high posts every {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} along the row, then run two rows of fence wire between the posts, one at the top of the post and one about a foot off the ground.
    • It's also possible to use twine, string, or wood to connect each post to the next. Use whatever materials you have on hand to let the blackberries climb on.
    • Ideally, trailing blackberries will spread in two rows, one higher and one lower, along each wire. With proper pruning, you can train new hardy growth along the trellis and cut back less-vigorous shoots. Keeping the plants trimmed will promote fruit growth and overall plant health, allowing water and sunlight to reach the most healthy cane.
  3. Weed the ground and leave the plant alone during the first season. Pull weeds that grow around the blackberries and continue watering the plants weekly as the seasons change. You should see leaves and maybe some blossoms in the late spring, or you might not, depending on the climate and variety. Canes and new shoots should be significant, though you probably won't get any fruit.[8]
    • In the late spring, cane should be shooting aggressively and you can practice training it out along the trellis if you want to, or support it with the post. In general, though, you shouldn't worry about cutting anything back, because you won't get any fruit, so you want to let the plant establish a solid root system.
    • In the winter, after your first season, you can cut cane back to about {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} tall and {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} wide, to let nutrients move back down to the roots. Depending on the kind of growth you got during the season, you can winter your plant accordingly. Winterizing blackberry is discussed in the following section.
  4. Prune away aggressive new canes during the second year growing season. Unburdened shoots will put on more fruit than the same shoots in a cluster of bramble. It's to your advantage, whatever the variety, to prune the blackberry regularly.
    • When your plant is ready to put on fruit, take action to keep the most hardy shoots healthy by cutting back new shoots from the base of the plant. Train the most blossom-laden shoots along your trellis system, or up the post, and cut back new growth that will sap water and sunlight from the healthy shoots.
    • Don't be afraid to aggressively cut back blackberry. Over-burdened bramble systems won't put on as much fruit in the same amount of space as a tamed and well-pruned plant.The plant will come back just as aggressively, if not more so next year, so feel free to really hack it back. It's very difficult to kill a healthy plant by pruning aggressively.

Harvesting and Protecting Your Plants

  1. Harvest berries in late summer. Sometime in early summer, beautiful white blackberry blossoms should form along healthy shoots, which will give way to hard green berries, which will gradually turn red, then deepen into a soft and dark purplish black color.[7]
    • Berries are ready to be harvested when they pull easily from the stem of the wine without much effort. There should be no red remaining on the berry, especially at the top where it meets the stem.
    • Pick blackberries in the coolest part of the day, usually the morning, before the sun heats them, and store them in the refrigerator to keep them fresh. Blackberries will stay fresh for no more than 4 or 5 days, depending on the variety, and will soften much more quickly when picked warm. If you can't eat all the blackberries you grow fresh, they're great for freezing.
    • When the blackberries start coming on, it's likely you'll need to pick them every 2 or 3 days, at least, depending on the climate. They'll start coming on all at once, and it's important that you pick them before the birds get to them, and before they over-ripen on the vine.
  2. Take action to keep birds away from your blackberries. Who can blame them? As much as you love a plump, juicy, and delicious blackberry, birds probably like them more. Since there's nothing more frustrating than going out to pick your berries and finding the best ones half-eaten, it's important that you take a few quick and easy steps to head off your bird friends at the pass.
    • Hang something flashy at the end of each row. Strips of mylar tape or shards of broken CDs are common bird-deterrents. You want something that will catch the breeze slightly and reflect the sunlight, since bright or flashing movement will scare birds away.
    • Use a scare-owl. Commonly sold at gardening stores, plastic owls can be planted at the edge of your blackberry patch and will often frighten away the lesser birds.
    • Try bird netting if you've got a serious problem. If the birds won't leave your berries alone, you can get some mesh bird netting to throw over the top of your plants. They'll still be able to get all the sunlight and water they need, but will keep the birds away. It's unfortunately possible for smaller birds to get stuck in some kinds of bird nets, making it a more obtrusive option for some growers.
  3. Keep an eye out for common blackberry diseases. Like any cultivated plant, blackberries are susceptible to a variety of diseases, blights, and pests that you can help to control with careful inspection and identification skills. Affected plants and cane needs to be eliminated and isolated from the rest of the plant, either by aggressive pruning or removal.
    • Yellowish leaves tend to be a sign of nitrogen deficiency in the soil, which you can quickly mend by spreading some coffee grounds around the base of the plants that seem to be struggling. Yellow spots, on the other hand, can be a sign of the bushy dwarf virus or blackberry calico, which means you'll need to remove the affected plants.
    • Mites, cane borers, aphids, and Japanese beetles can affect blackberries, depending on the region you live in. Keep an eye out for munched-on leaves and berries and take action accordingly. Soap, orange oil, and tobacco are all organic varieties of insecticide you can make yourself.
    • Various fungi and blights such as crown rot, double blossom, or cane blight can be treated with fungicides like Bordeaux mixture or lime sulfur.[9]
  4. Prune old cane during the winter. After the growing season, the shoots and canes will start browning and dying down. It's usually best, however, to wait to prune it back until it's died off significantly, waiting until the late fall or winter to prune the blackberry entirely. This gives the plant enough time to suck the nutrients back from the long shoots into the root system, keeping it healthy for the winter.
    • You can trim back erect varieties to about {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} tall, and no more than a foot or two wide, then cover them with matting for the winter, if you're going to have lots of snow, or you can leave them exposed. It's a good idea to trim back the plant to the strongest 3 or 4 major primary canes to give the plant the best possible start in the next growing season.
    • Trailing vines can be pruned by removing the fruiting canes and leaving the primary branch canes intact unless they've died and no longer put on fruiting cane. Typically, blackberry canes will put on fruit for about 2 years before dying off, though new canes will continue growing from the base.
  5. Fertilize the soil each spring. After your plants endure each winter, give them the best possible start by layering compost or the fertilizer of your choice around the blackberry before the growing season. Cared for properly and re-energized with fertilizer, blackberry plants can continue fruiting for as many as 20 years. Invest in them, and they'll give back.



Warnings

  • Blackberry bushes take over. Even if you think you have them under control, they're sending out suckers somewhere else unseen. They are considered to be a plant pest in many parts of the world.

Things You'll Need

  • Suitable garden space
  • Gardening equipment
  • Blackberry sucker

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/fruit-nut/files/2010/10/blackberries.pdf
  2. ↑ http://www.almanac.com/plant/blackberries
  3. ↑ https://indianaberry.com/info_blkberry_variety.php
  4. ↑ http://www.fruit.cornell.edu/berry/production/pdfs/blkbvarietyreview.pdf
  5. ↑ http://homeguides.sfgate.com/berry-growing-greenhouse-47743.html
  6. ↑ http://homeguides.sfgate.com/type-mulch-blackberries-69093.html
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 http://www.garden.org/foodguide/browse/fruit/blackberry/1610
  8. ↑ http://www.diynetwork.com/how-to/how-to-plant-blackberries/index.html#step4
  9. ↑ http://msucares.com/newsletters/pests/infobytes/19990915.htm

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