Request for blackberry info.

[Smiles Jr.]

Black berries are one of our favorite fruits and I have been preparing a bed along a fenceline for about 20 blackberry plants. I have done some reading and watched some vids on the internet about growing blackberries. But I'm unsure if fall is a good planting time for new potted plants. What are your thoughts on this?

Also I would like to go with the thornless, giant berries. My experience is that hybrid fruit like this is not as sweet and juicy as the smaller variety or wild grown. Thoughts?

 

[vfem]

Hahaha... when I first saw this post I thought you meant my phone!?

I am so dim today! :coolsun

 

[Ridgerunner]

I went with the thorny varieties on the thought they might be sweeter than the thornless. I'm not convinced that is true but I believe the thornless are less vigorous that the thorny. I'm basing that on something I read a while back, that the thorny will send up more sprouts and fill up the row faster. I don't always trust my memory 100% on things like that, but ...... If I were starting over, I'd probably try a thornless variety along with a thorny to compare.

I went with Kiowa, a thorny one that produces the really huge berries. I like them. They produce a lot and the taste is pretty good. They get real sweet but the not quite ripe berries are pretty tart. The juice is really good for jellies and jams. Those thorns are vicious though, worse than some others. I also tried Prime Jim and Prime Jan. These are the ones that will produce on the first year canes. I don't think they produce nearly as well, but the flavor is good. I can't really recommend them since I don't think they produce all that well.

I did not go with the started plants but just got the roots. Dig a shallow trench maybe 2" deep and put a root about the size of a pencil and about 6" long in it during the winter when they are dormant. The canes come up in the spring. Most varieties won't produce that firstyear but by the third year they are really thick and producing a ton.

 

[Carol Dee]

My father's buddy has a thornles variety. The berries are huge and sweet! I will try to find out the name.

 

[catjac1975]

I have thornless and they are huge and sweet. I would never buy thorny plants. They do not spread as quickly as other varieties, but they are easy to root more. I take all my prunings, shove them into the ground and hope for the best. I have had many root easily in this fashion. The berries are not on my list of priorities just because I have so much to do in the gardens, so they get very little care. They have done well even in the drought. Fall is the best time to plant most everything. Just loosen the roots a bit-they may have begun to circle the pot.

Black berries are one of our favorite fruits and I have been preparing a bed along a fenceline for about 20 blackberry plants. I have done some reading and watched some vids on the internet about growing blackberries. But I'm unsure if fall is a good planting time for new potted plants. What are your thoughts on this?

Also I would like to go with the thornless, giant berries. My experience is that hybrid fruit like this is not as sweet and juicy as the smaller variety or wild grown. Thoughts?

 

[GreeneGarden]

My favorites are Triple Crown and Doyle.
Triple Crown is great for fresh eating and has good disease resistance.
Doyle is too seedy for anything but jam and fruit leather.
But it is very disease resistant.
Navaho is rated as the best tasting but it is not as disease resistant.

http://www.gardenfornutrition.org/

 

[897tgigvib]

A few months back I purchased 7 assorted berry plants. 3 of them I planted in my north row. Since I did not have enough room for the other 4, I put them in 5 gallon pots. I already had an old thornless plant that was on a friend's property just north of Santa Rosa. It grows prostrate, and may be a Burbank thornless blackberry. One of my purchased plants in a 5 gallon pot is Navajo blackberry. It has 2 five, foot long heavy stems arching real cool, and is very vigorous. I also purchased 2 Tayberries. These are about half raspberry and half blackberry. Also very vigorous! They made me berries in their 5 gallon pots. The flavor is great, and the berries are mostly very large to huge, even in the pots. Tayberries pick like raspberries, and they have that subtle raspberry flavor in them. One I picked a bit too soon, and it even tasted good, only slightly tart. Tayberries have many short thorns like a raspberry, but those short thorns are stout like blackberry thorns. I also purchased a Boysenberry that I did plant in among the amaranths and sunflowers. It gave me a few samples too. Those'll be great in pies! It turned vigorous when the taller plants made shade. That north bed will be a project this winter! I also planted the local "feral gone wild" blackberry that some say is a loganberry. This plant was just a rooted growing stem I yanked out at the side of a nearby road. It's growing hog wild, throwing up suckers. Strong big thorns, the kind to watch out for. Also got an Indian Summer Raspberry with the typical raspberry many small thorns. I also purchased one that had no label on it! Pretty sure it's a raspberry. Last, I have a wild pacific dewberry that I planted. I want to do some crosses with it. Their seeds sprout easy.

Are ther any yellow blackberries? I like how blackberries grow like weeds!

 

[baymule]

My favorites are Triple Crown and Doyle.
Triple Crown is great for fresh eating and has good disease resistance.
Doyle is too seedy for anything but jam and fruit leather.
But it is very disease resistant.
Navaho is rated as the best tasting but it is not as disease resistant.

http://www.gardenfornutrition.org/

That is good to know about the Doyle. I was planning on buying the Doyle, but I like berry cobblers and I don't want a mouth full of seeds!