Blackberries can inspire in your own garden with their sweet and juicy fruits. Everything you need to know about the blackberry can be found here.
The blackberry (Rubus fruticosus) is a perennial favourite. Once planted, it is vigorous and productive, sometimes even so much that the blackberry can become a nuisance. With the right tips, however, growing blackberries is an exciting task for every hobby gardener and is rewarded with good harvests. We will tell you what is important when planting blackberries, what tools you need and how to prevent blackberries from growing.
Blackberry varieties: Evergreen, thornless & tasty varieties
Wild blackberries are usually particularly prickly and make the harvest of the sweet fruit a "disaster" in the truest sense of the word. There are some thornless varieties for garden cultivation that can easily keep up with their prickly relatives in terms of taste - they are also often incorrectly referred to as "thornless" blackberries. Botanically speaking, like all other rose plants (Rosaceae), the blackberry does not have thorns, but prickles.
These blackberry varieties in particular are extremely popular:
'Navaho': large, shiny fruits with an aromatic flavor; thornless and robust variety with strongly upright growing, long rods; pink flowers
'Black Satin': Medium to strong upright growing variety; thornless; very productive; glossy black fruits with moderate taste; slightly susceptible to frost and disease
'Loch Ness': semi-erect growing canes; thornless; very large, firm fruits with an aromatic sweet taste; very productive; disease-prone
'Asterina': robust variety with very large, firm fruits; sweet taste; thornless; moderate growth
'Jumbo': thornless, very productive variety; vigorous; very large, soft fruits, which don't taste particularly good
'Chester Thornless': fast-growing, climbing variety with large, tasty fruits;thornless; late maturing and bearing until the first frost; high ornamental value due to the beautiful flowers
'Baby Cakes': special brazelberry-breeding; looks like a small blueberry bush that can be cultivated in a pot; high ornamental value but lower yields
'Black Cascade': bushy, slow-growing variety that can be cultivated in a basket because of the overhanging shoots; medium-sized, sweet fruits; young canes are spined, but after pruning the spines decrease.
You can find an extensive collection of blackberry varieties and more detailed information on the individual varieties here.
Plant Blackberries
The blackberry is a robust shrub that can also cope well with less favorable conditions. However, there are some basic conditions that you should by no means deny your prickly berry. We explain step by step how to get your beloved blackberry to perform at its best.
Plant Blackberries: Location
Blackberries are very vigorous, even in poor locations. The demands on the soil are not particularly high, but in particularly heavy and humus-poor soil you should add some fertilizer or rotted material to the planting hole when planting the blackberries.
Planting blackberries: when and how?
Basically, one cannot give a specific time for planting the blackberry, as it is very robust anyway. In addition, the tasty blackberry is now sold almost exclusively with root balls, so it has the best conditions for a good start in your own bed. A well-rooted blackberry can be recognized by the fact that the entire root ball can be pulled out of the flower pot without leaving any residue.
However, it is advisable to plant the blackberry in autumn (September/October), as the bushes sprout in early spring. To do this, loosen the soil generously and deeply to provide the fine roots with an optimal basis for growth.
Tip: Before planting, you can dip the entire root ball under water. Then it will be soaked and all fine roots will be supplied with water.
After planting the blackberry bush, cover the planting hole again and gently press down the soil around the stem. To protect the soil from excessive evaporation,you can cover the bed with a thin layer of bark mulch.
Here is a summary of the most important things about planting the blackberries:
- Deciding on Upright or Creeping Bramble
- Dig a generous planting hole; Loosen the soil deeply
- Add some compost for heavy sites
- Water the root ball
- Plant and press blackberries; apply bark mulch to prevent evaporation
- For creeping varieties: use a trellis as a climbing aid
We have created detailed instructions for planting blackberries for you here.
Propagating blackberries
Fortunately, propagating blackberries is relatively easy. When propagating, you should only pay attention to whether it is a climbing or an upright blackberry variety. Upright growing variants are best propagated by root cuttings or offshoots. Climbing or creeping blackberries can be propagated via root cuttings as well as via layering and cuttings.
- foothills
Occasionally, blackberry plants will sprout underground and emerge from the ground some distance away. If necessary, this new plant can be cut out with a piece of root that is as long as possible and planted in another place.
- Root Cuttings
For this you use root pieces that have at least one or two shoots. These are placed in a box with moist organic herb & seed soil and covered with soil. Then the seed box is placed in a light, cool and well-ventilated place. In the best case, new, small plants will sprout from the root pieces over the winter.
- Cuttings
For this purpose, one-year-old shoots of the shrub are cut off and divided into pieces, each with two to three nodes (leaf knots). Then they are placed in pots with loose growth substrate. Under warm and humid conditions, the cuttings will develop enough roots to support themselves with nutrients in a few weeks.
- Lowerer
Long shoots of the blackberry plant are pressed to the ground, covered with a layer of soil and weighed down with a stone. The tip of the shoot should still look out of the ground. By autumn, the sinkers will form enough roots tobeing separated from the mother plant.
You can find more detailed instructions on the individual types of blackberry propagation here.
Caring for Blackberries
The blackberry is a true vitamin bomb and also extremely tasty and sweet. Its provitamin A and vitamin C content is above average compared to its berry counterparts. In order for your blackberry to be able to achieve this top performance, you should take good care of it. But don't worry: the blackberry doesn't need a lot of attention.
Watering Blackberries
The blackberry is a thirsty type of berry. When planting, you should therefore ensure that the roots are adequately watered. Due to its rapid growth and juicy berries, the water consumption is relatively high. For this reason, make sure that your darlings are always in moist soil, without the blackberry sinking into waterlogging. Daily watering is therefore advisable, especially in hotter temperatures.
Fertilize blackberries
Regular application of fertilizer is necessary for the blackberry to grow vigorously and produce many fruits. It is best to fertilize the blackberries in early spring (March) with a primarily organic long-term fertilizer of organic quality such as our Plantura organic universal fertilizer. You can also use your own garden compost. A layer of mulch made from grass clippings also ensures a good supply of humus.
You can find more information about fertilizing blackberry bushes here.
Pruning blackberries
The blackberry needs pruning on a regular basis to keep in shape and to be protected against pests. Every year, the annual shoots that have already borne fruit are cut back very generously. This pruning is usually done before winter to make the plant more resistant for the winter and to deprive pests such as the blackberry mite of its winter quarters.
You can find more expert tips and detailed instructions for cutting blackberries here.
Harvest Blackberries
Especially for children, it is great fun when they can snack on fruit straight from the garden. But when are the blackberries ripe and what is the best way to pick them?
Blackberries: When isHarvest time?
It is not possible to give an exact date for the blackberry harvest, as the plants produce fruit again and again over a relatively long period of time. This is due to the blackberry's uneven flowering period. This is good for us because we can always harvest fresh blackberries when we need them without the risk of them spoiling in the fridge. Depending on the variety, the blackberry harvest can last from July to October.
Pick blackberries: This is the best way to proceed
The blackberry consists of numerous small stone fruits. From a botanical point of view, one does not actually speak of berries, but of aggregate drupes. The fruits are ripe when they shine blue-black and almost fall off by themselves when picked. That's when they taste the sweetest. Wear gloves when harvesting the blackberries to avoid injury from the thorns. In the meantime, however, there are also excellent thornless cultivars that make cultivation and care easier.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when harvesting:
- Wear gloves and long clothing against prickly vines
- Have enough peels ready to avoid crushing the blackberries
- Only pick the blackberries when they can be easily peeled off
- Blackberries don't ripen - so don't pick them too early
Storing Blackberries
The blackberry is very juicy and soft. Due to its special shape, it is also particularly susceptible to crushing. It is advisable to consume the sweet berry no later than a few days after harvest, otherwise it will spoil quickly. If you want to keep your sweet treats longer, here are some tips for storing and preserving blackberries.
Freeze Blackberries
Blackberries are great for freezing. In order to keep the most beautiful looking specimens after thawing, you should freeze your harvest as soon as possible. To do this, simply rinse the blackberries thoroughly, let them drain in a sieve and then portion out the sweet berries. Prepared like this, the blackberries are ready for the freezer.
Tip: If you are using the blackberries in a dessert, for example, it is often advisable to serve them slightly frozen. This conveys more freshness andgives the berry a bit more bite.
Preserving blackberries
Like most other berries, blackberries can also be preserved by boiling them down. Blackberries are mainly processed as jelly or jam and remain fruity and delicious long after they have been harvested. To preserve, simply put your harvested fruits with the appropriate amount of preserving sugar and some water in a saucepan and simmer until everything has combined to form a homogeneous mass. Depending on your preference, you can now fine-tune the desired consistency of the jam with a hand blender. Then fill the still hot fruity mass into sealable containers and boil them again for at least half an hour in a large saucepan. Then let it cool down - done.
Remove Blackberries
Despite its great properties, the blackberry can occasionally become a nuisance. In particular, wild relatives of our garden varieties can develop into unloved invaders in our gardens. If this is the case, there are several ways to get rid of the overgrown blackberries. On the one hand, this is possible by mechanical removal, i.e. by cutting off and digging up the runners. There is also the possibility of fighting blackberries with pesticides - however, glyphosate-containing products are not only viewed critically in gardening circles.
Read more about blackberry removal in our feature article here.