Hi All,
My Blackberry plants are three years old now (and still no flowers or fruit). Each spring, the branches go green with leaves, but some don't. On the dead ones, do I let mother nature take its cource and them fall off naturally or should I prune the dead ones?
Many thanks,
-T
If these are "wild" blackberries , they fruit on last year's growth . Those canes die after fruiting and can be pruned - in fact they must be pruned or you end up with a big mess of dead canes in the way of picking any fruit . And I have the scars to prove it , that's why I planted thornless .
in an arid environment dead material is valuable as mulch and protection against the wind drying things out.
thorny mulch may not be the best material but when nothing else is available it would have to do.
around here, as much as i can i get things buried once i know they're done. that way the worms and fungi can get to work on them asap.
songbird
They are Arapaho Blackberries.
Pruned they are!
I have new growth this year and some old growth on old canes. Have no seen any flowers yet.
Canes. I never knew what those branches were called.
Thank you!
His Arapaho's are thornless - I have some in my berry patch .
How many years did it take yours to fruit?
They haven't yet ... but they should next spring . Two of our six were transplanted last spring , 2 were new then - those 4 plants were very stressed last winter , all top growth was killed by subzero temps . The remaining 2 were new this spring , cold temps and too much rain have been a problem .
One of my four is all total new growth. All four are on their third year. I made sure they (everyone) was watered in the winter.
All three on my Choke Berries are fine. And my Goji and loving life. My back hurts just thinking of picking them. I have a months or so before that starts. Chock's are much easier to pick: one once in the fall.
I need to try some other variety of thornless- problem is, I do not recall what I have, nor did I by the time they started to fruit a year or 3 after they went in.
They fruit well enough, look great, but they do not have the deep, wonderful flavor of the scratch-your-eyes-out old ones I spent so long getting rid of.
Boron Elgar wrote: ...
there are a few things i'm willing to just buy at the store. raspberry seedless jam and blackberry seedless jam. i like both of them but i don't want them very often and i sure don't want anything around here like a blackberry patch having seen what they are like out west.
acres and acres of blackberry brambles is enough to give me nightmares.
songbird
Well understood.
I used to have a wild raspberry of some sort. The stems were more thorn than stem. Torturous things.The berries were enclosed until they were almost ripe, but the fruit was so appealing to the wildlife, that I never got any. Been digging it out for 25 years.
The mean things looked a bit like this, plant wise, though the berries differed.
Bob F wrote: ...
the last time i picked berries in the woods it was thimbleberries and i ended up stepping on a rock that gave way and dumped my container on the hillside. and the bad thing about that was that i don't really much like thimbleberries as compared to raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, etc. heh. :)
songbird
Thimbleberries! Shades of growing up in Michigan.
Do they have seeds and thorns?
T wrote: ...thimbleberries...
seeds yes. thorns no.
songbird
Bob F wrote: ...
they are too cloyingly sweet to me. i like things more on the tart side.
songbird
Big seeds like regular blackberries and raspberries or little, unnoticeable seeds like Arapaho Blackberries?
They grow in zone 3-7 so idea for me. And since they are wild, they will not have been hybridized for unnatural levels of carbs. Double idea.
And since I am Keto, I can taste much lower levels of sweetness, which is why I adore chokeberries and non-ketos hate (choke on) them
:-)
-T
T wrote: ...thimbleberries...
seedy.
you missed my comment about them being cloyingly sweet.
i doubt they will be happy in an arid environment. they're normally found in woodlands. the can tolerate full sun, but i don't know that they'd tolerate full arid sun and high temperature days.
songbird
Bob F wrote: ...
yes, along the openings edges and along rivers/creeks and such that was the normal place to find them.
songbird
The trophy wife hates seeds.
I saw it. I thought you were comparing it to another berry. And now I can't find the post to see. Search on body did even find it.
If you find the "cloying", they'd probably make me want to puke.
Thank you for stopping me.
-T
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