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How to Grow Blackberries

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Learning how to grow blackberries can sometimes be a daunting task if you aren’t familiar with how to grow fruit and berries. However, planting blackberries and growing blackberries can be a rather easy.

Soil Conditions

The blackberry plant needs free draining soil and full sun is ideal. As with most vine growing plants, blackberries need to be in rows. Of course, they welcome organic mulch and mildly acid soil (pH 6-6.5).

Blackberry Plant Varieties

There are two types of blackberry plants, trailing and erect. As its names suggests, the erect version have sturdy, arching branches that can be self-supporting.

Seeding

All your need is a cutting from an established blackberry plant, you take a cutting and barely cover it on the ground or put it in some water and it will start sprouting. Blackberry plants are very determined and have been compared to weed in the way that they grow.

You can also buy seeds of established plants from a local nursery or online.

Planting Blackberries

When you plant your blackberry plant be sure to plant them in a row along a row or along posts that have twine in between them for them to grow on. The rows should be 10 feet apart and the plants in the row should be at least 2 feet apart.

In North America, they will start dying back in the fall, be sure to prune them, as they can grow out of control. Keeping them pruned will certainly help with the crop the next year.

Sprouting and Suckering

A big part of the success of your knowing how to grow blackberries is keeping on top of their sprouting and suckering. If you do, you will be guaranteed to have a fuller more luscious crop. In North America, this sprouting and suckering time is crucial to do in the spring. If you do not keep on top of this, you will have a crop that is out of control in a season.

The best way to start a row of blackberries is to get a bunch of cuttings from established plants and stick them in the ground and keep the soil moist until you see new leaf growth. Or place them in a 5 gallon bucket until you get the new leaf growth and then plant them, while keeping the soil moist.

Pruning – Video

Usually you can just cut them back and take any vines that are off the fence line or off the twine and wrap it back around where you want it to grow. This video shows you how to prune blackberries if they are out of control.



Diseases

If your blackberries are grown in an area that is poorly ventilated or that doesn’t have decent drainage, then you will get mold, much like you’ve seen on blackberries at the grocery store. As you can imagine, mold will ruin your crop, so be sure to plant them in full sun, so that you don’t run the risk of too much moisture.

How to Grow Blackberries Videos:




How to Grow Blackberries

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