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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 25, 2020 20:36:18 GMT -6
Blackberry Thread Who knows how we got by so long without a Blackberry thread? So, I started one here today.
Thanks to a very generous friend of mine, I now have 35 Thorn-less Blackberry vines started. I planted 31 of them in my old hog pen and 4 of them in my garden. I have 10 more on order, from Ison's Nursery, but they still haven't arrived.Right now, I'm working on converting my old hog pen into a berry patch. I have 60 Elderberries planted out there and over 30 Blackberries, so far. I've also planted several Muscadine grapevines, but they leaf out so late, that it's really hard to tell if they are still alive. I have an order put in for a few more potted Muscadines, but they are on back-order due to a surge of orders placed by Covid-19 hoarders, so who knows when they will actually ship?Within a couple of year's time, I should have a pretty good thing going out there. Berries have been a big part of my Perma-culture plans for quite some time. I just never had a safe place to plant them until we got rid of all our hogs last Autumn. The high price of feed, due to flooding of Nation-wide cornfields in the Spring of 2019, has made animal husbandry really difficult to achieve lately. Corn went up to nearly $10.00 per 50-pound bag during the Winter and the hogs were going through 100 pounds of feed every 10 days (300-pounds per month). That soon became too much of a financial burden to bare for the long-term.Hopefully, Perma-culture and Poultry will become a viable alternative to raising hogs.
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Post by macmex on Apr 26, 2020 6:15:56 GMT -6
Unfortunately, they removed the link which was specifically to Hicks Everbearing Mulberry. Still, this person (Eliza Greenman) is really into trees which feed hogs and poultry. Her blog, which can be found here, is extremely good.here
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Post by mountianj on Apr 26, 2020 20:57:18 GMT -6
That alot blackberries. i planted two triple crown thorn-less and two chester thorn-less this year. i panted two kiowa thorn blackberries last year hoping they do well this year.plus their all kinds wild blackberries to pick but they take alot to make a mess but their very good.plan on getting few more blackberries to plant.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 28, 2020 21:54:23 GMT -6
That was a good website, George. Thanks, for posting that.
I sell stuff at the Farmers' Market each Summer, so I have to plant a lot of stuff. I have lots of wild blackberries around here, but I also have lots of wild chiggers. The last time I went berry picking outside my garden in Early-July, my ankles looked like I was still wearing socks when I took them off, due to chigger bites ... I planted these new vines in the open, so I can spray and mow around them before I go picking.
I really came close to planting some Kiowa thorned blackberries, and some Darrow thorned blackberries, but I decided I had spent so many weeks, pulling wild thorned blackberries up by the root, that it would be nuts to replant with more thorned berry bushes.
At least this way, I can tell the wild vines, from the tame ones in winter, when I'm culling the bushes.
My wild blackberry bushes usually blossom out so heavily that the berry size really suffers as a result. Some years, the berries are no bigger than peas. Hopefully, the tame ones won't bear quite so heavily.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 8, 2020 1:18:49 GMT -6
I planted 15 more thornless blackberry bushes today before the rains hit. I think I'm up to about 50 bushes so far?
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 31, 2022 8:20:17 GMT -6
The 50 Thornless blackberry bushes that I planted back in 2020 are multiplying and producing like crazy this year! Last year, we had about enough berries to enjoy over a couple bowls of cereal. This year, there will be multiple gallons of them once they are finally ripe. Right now, they are only just beginning to set fruit. There are thousands of blossoms and runners pointing in every direction. That has been much anticipated as we pruned and trained the vines for the past two years, waiting on our first fruits.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2022 8:28:12 GMT -6
That's fabulous Ron. Looks like it might be something you can have even with all the critter pressure at your place. Hard to keep up with the hungry (spoiled) animals. lol
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 31, 2022 13:28:57 GMT -6
My blackberries are inside of my old hog pen. Since I traded for the wire I used, it was not suited for the purpose but was just what I had available, so my hog pen was built of 6 foot tall chainlink fence. Now that feed prices have made hogs too expensive to raise in an enclosure, the 6' foot fence works really well to keep the deer from my berries, though she still finds a way in there from time to time.
I started with about 50 berry vines, back in 2020, but since that time, I've laid canes over and pruned so many times that the number of plants now has probably tripled or even quadrupled. This is the first year they might bear more than a handful of berries. I'm pretty excited at the prospect of finally getting a decent harvest. I wish you guys lived closer, so I could share.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2022 15:23:04 GMT -6
We would do a berry swap!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 31, 2022 17:45:02 GMT -6
I would very much enjoy that!
Last year, I picked 95 pounds of elderberries out there and just finally had to stop picking because I ran out of freezer space. Then, I spent the cold months of winter processing berries into elixirs, tinctures, tonics, and what have you. I always have way more than I can possibly use. I have over a hundred elderberry plants now, plus the blackberries and the blueberries. Things like that make for a very busy summer.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 1, 2022 18:47:48 GMT -6
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 2, 2022 11:47:00 GMT -6
That little red wagon is a handy thing to have. I use it way more than the kids ever did.
I didn't get anything done in the garden today. I was too stove up from yesterday to go duck walking out there again today. Instead, I went to a friend's house and wired an electric fence charger to keep the deer out of his garden. Henry amazes me. He was born in 1929. This month he'll be 93-years old. His whole yard and his whole garden look like something out of a gardening catalog. When I drove over to his house; he was working on an old hydraulic wood splitter, getting it ready for next winter.
The same storm that struck George's radio antenna last week, also struck Henry's old electric fence charger, and the deer have been ravaging his garden ever since. I'm glad I drove by there to see him today. I didn't know that was going on. He'd have never asked for any help. I was able to build a new fence charger out of two old dead ones and got him going again before dinner. We sat out in his yard and just talked about old cars or whatever until nearly dark. it was a good day.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 3, 2022 13:15:48 GMT -6
Break Time Time to take a break and enjoy a bowl of homemade soup. I finally got my berry patch cleaned out and ready to go for whenever harvest time rolls around. It took me two days of hard labor, but it was well worth the effort.
It looks kind of desolate out here now that the weeds are gone, but that will be a welcome site some dewy July morning when I'm out there picking berries and won't be worried about where a snake might be hiding out. The good thing about tall weeds is there is no undergrowth, so this job was not nearly as bad as I initially thought it would be. The vines are absolutely covered with blossoms this year. It looks like a June wedding every time I go out there. Especially, with all one hundred of the elderberry bushes in full bloom at the same time. Sometimes, I think I'm lucky just be be able to see a thing like that. This is what I started out with a few days ago. Goals are important, just a little progress each day. If a fella looked at the whole project all at once, he'd probably just give up and go back inside. Truth be known, by the time I finally finished pulling weeds today, my hands were so trembly, I had a hard time holding the camera still long enough to snap a few photos. This is day #3, row #1. I have seven more rows to go.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 5, 2022 20:37:07 GMT -6
I enjoy my time pulling weeds. I do wish there was light nearer the end of the tunnel though. My garden is falling behind, due to so many hours spent in the berry patch. I should have been born twins.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Mar 22, 2023 22:00:16 GMT -6
Well, nowhere near blackberries like you've got, heavyhitterokra, but I just got me a start of a thornless blackberry vine, on clearance at Walmart for $5. So far, so good. From prior experience, I know I'll need to set it on a timed drip line, before the heat of summer.
Growing berries here, is nothing like the, almost 10 years I spent in Oak Harbor, WA; many varieties of wild or naturalized Rubus species grew there, wherever you looked.
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