Blackberry ID

Same here; multiple blackberry varieties have simultaneous ripe berries and lingering bloom. Triple Crown often develops late spurs that bloom well after the main crop is done.

Saying that your berries are starting to ripen is premature; they are developing (sizing) and going from green phase to red phase. Save the ripening term for nearly black berries. If Triple Crown, the ripe berries are near-spherical and slightly irregular in shape. On the other hand, 3crown is a late-season crop.

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In what environs? In parts of SoCal we’re having our first crop of the session in a few weeks.

Certainly in Pacific Northwest high chill hours region. For this topic I meant late-season as a relative term for all blackberry varietals.

In SoCal where does Triple Crown fit in the blackberry ripening order?

In coastal influenced areas (5 to 20 miles depending on the terrain) it fruits 2-3 times a year. The date of the first crop is highly dependent on the Jan-Feb weather that year.

My kids have probably picked 8-10 berries which have been so-so. Decent flavor to me, but kinda sour. I’m trying to wait until the berries are almost ready to fall off as we pick them and see if they’re sweeter.

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I tried two which came off the… Flower stem(?) pretty easily. A bit sweeter. Good flavor. Just big seeds.

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Fruit will be fully ripe when a sideways bend removes berry from stem (note this is not a pulling motion!). Many blackberries lose their shine when fully ripe; Triple Crown can still be a little shiny and have sweetness. Your berries are bulbous like TC, but I can’t be sure of the variety. Black Satin ruled out again, they are cylindrical and elongated.

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We’ve let some stay on longer. Yum!:slight_smile: some still just so-so but some have been awesome!!! Still seeing buds.

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Oops. Forgot to mention the funky curling leaves. Don’t know what that is.

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Navaho maybe?

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Yes Navaho looks a lot like TC. Fruits around the same time too. Not as aggressive a grower here. Canes are smaller. Berries look identical, sightly smaller. Mine grow right next to each other. Not ripe yet here.

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We are really enjoying them :grinning:

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I love being able to look back at my previous posts and pics! Gives me hope that in three months we may have delicious berries again! Trying to prune back to just 5-8 canes/crown. Sooo many baby plants off of roots from the main crowns. I wanted to move my garden which is on pause but I know I’ll take some of these volunteers. Rats- Will try to get a pic tomorrow- phone keeps saying there’s no room.

looks like quite a mess, to me. I still need to prune/thin. I’m getting spring fever:)

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I’m pretty happy with my pruning. Took a rushed photo that doesn’t show it, but I also put a 12’ board that had just decently sized holes atop my t-posts to keep tension between them. Then I put up the same wire I had used last year, but last year the wire was the only thing making tension, if that makes sense. Still wish I’d spaced them way more apart than I did when planting them back in fall 2014. But, I’ve got some suckers on either side and think I might let those grow up and then try to cut back/down the right-most bigger plant. I took about 12 sucker volunteers (hope those are the right terms- baby plants that came off the roots) and put them along a drainage creek area. They will be totally unfenced and I’m not sure I’ll spend $ to protect them so we’ll have to see how they do with deer pressure. Would be exciting to have tons of these :slight_smile:

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Those are very sturdy looking canes, and to my untrained eye, they look like they’re pruned well. You’ll have some nice berries come June time. Did you ever figure out what variety they are? Some kind of thornless BB, obviously. Not too important to know, I guess, as long as they’re good.

I was outside yesterday, and two of the seven Triple Crown tip layers I planted about 3 weeks ago have sprouted. Not as far along as yours, of course, but still exciting to see them poke up out of the wet dirt.

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Yes, topping the t-posts with wood is an excellent way to keep everything stable.
To speed eventual even clump spacing, you could tip-root two protocanes this fall, placing each about 1 foot inside each t-post. The current spacing is not a big problem.

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Thanks, subdood. I never did conclude the variety, but, yes to thornless and tasty berries. Exciting to start some new triple crowns! Hope they do well and you get lots of fruit in due time!!

I think I read of using the wood with the t-posts on here, actually. The wood is starting to rot (cedar from an old playset, actually) but it’s doing the trick for now. Good to know that the spacing isn’t too bad. Thank you.

Thanks. Well, alas, I’ll have to wait until next year to taste any of these TC’s provided they all come up and do well this year.

This time next week, I’ll have four more BB’s (and ten raspberries) coming in and will have to find a place for them. I ordered one each of PrimeArk Freedom and Traveler, Osage and Ouachita. If the PA’s do well, we might get some berries off the primocanes this year, but not really expecting any, so no big deal. If yours is a Navaho, I’ve heard those are some of the better tasting UofA thornless berries, but not very big.

I’m wanting to get out and till a row for my berries, but the ground is still really wet now (and it’s raining again now!). There’s a lot of ground work that needs to be done, and the weather isn’t cooperating. I think today’s the first day it’s been sunny since Tuesday. I was able to get out today and pull the straw off the strawberries, so I did get something done today.