I'm doing my best to get fellow members to look into growing berries and dwarf fruit trees in small, sunny spaces about their homes. The Europeans are, and have been, way ahead of us in utilizing any free space about the home to grow fruits and vegetables.
It's a cherry! No. It's a peach! No. It's an apple. You're all wrong. It's an Arapaho! It's a blackberry!
If I bush hog my tame blackberries down this fall, will they come back next spring?
Yes, and they will come back thicker.
From my experience, careful pruning can even increase crops....more blackberries! YUM!!!
If the plants are healthy, they should come back next year. But don't expect berries the first year after cutting them to the ground.
The first year's canes are called primocanes. They do not bear fruit. The next year, the primocanes become floricanes, they produce flowers, then fruit. Then they die. This is Nature's way of pruning the plant.
If there is a reason to prune the primocanes, I guess it's OK. I would not prune the floricanes. You would be pruning away fruit bearing cane, especially the tips.
i agree about maybe taking two years to bear fruit after cutting back severely. There is some controversy about this but it seems most agree that it may take two years for berries, so you will need to have a year to get the canes back.
Maybe bush-hog half and prune the other half so you may have berries next year?
Maybe I should have consulted my notes on blackberries before posting because I wasn't aware of controversy. Unless I'm mistaken, there are plants that will bear a small crop of fruit on the first year's canes, late in the season.
This is a blackberry bloom. Taking these pictures are therapy for me.
This is just a warning to those of you who are interested in planting blackberries. Choose your site carefully.
How do I get slips from thornless blackberries?
By Donnie from Boaz, KY
In the spring when the blackberry leaves come out, draw the tip of the cane onto the ground and secure it with a chunk of wire that you have cut to resemble a large hairpin. A piece 7 or eight inches long that has been bent double will do quite nicely. Do this for as many slips as you want in the fall. In the fall cut the new canes free of the old ones and dig them up and replant.be sure to cover with mulch if it gets really cold where you are.
Blackberries grow well in zones 4 to 9. Choose hardy, virus-free plants cultivated to your specific growing zone. Because varieties have different growth habits (upright or trailing), plan ahead to create a training and support system to match the variety you select.
Optimal sweetness is achieved when the berry is fully ripe. Some berries actually may appear ready to pick when black and shiny, but with some varieties it is when they become less shiny that they are the sweetest.
If you decide to grow blackberries, be aware that the different varieties have varying levels of sweetness. Picking the berries later in the season will make them sweeter too.
Can anyone tell me the best way to grow blackberries and raspberries in containers? I have wild blackberries all around my back yard, but the wildlife beats me to them!
My zone is 7b.
By Cricket from NC