Jerry,
Don’t be to envious there is a skunk hiding under that bush and it’s his home. He threatened me earlier with a couple of tail twitches! Those beautiful berries will come at a cost so it’s a good thing I’ve already eaten my fill! We were about a foot or two from each other when I looked down and saw him. We just call him flower and we all know who we are talking about. He’s lived here for years and has no fear of people. When you are driving in the field if flower is there you just wait and don’t expect him to walk across the path quickly he may even stop once or twice. Figure its best not to make him mad,
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Got that right! For some reason I’m reminded of a similar (more colorful) comment a lawyer friend made concerning a former neighbor… “Don’t get into a p—ing match with a skunk”
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Yikes, I don’t even want look at those thorns. Those blackberries will cost a lot to my skin.
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I like to forage for raspberries, and they get me good. My domesticated blackberries have thorns but for me they really are not a problem. I’m not walking through the patches.
Yes my freezer is filling fast. Mine look like Clark’s patch. Hundreds and hundreds to pick yet.
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The berries are really pouring in! We have picked gallons this year and the main crop has not started yet!
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Just picked a gallon a few minutes ago, plus all the ones I ate while picking!
Picked some last week and probably half another gallon on the plants to ripen yet. Now to find a good recipe or two.
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Very pretty and very delicious! Mine are still green, just picking my first raspberries. The raccoon (s) ate my black raspberries their favorite!~
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your raspberry is later season, mine are closer to be done
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My first try at blackberries is just getting going, but I am having a big problem with tree-rats stripping the fruit and breaking the laterals long before the berries ripen. This is my second year, and I still don’t know if I will get to taste any blackberry fruit this year. 
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I would trap them Paully. There is a tree rat thread where you can get some good pointers.
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I visited Clarks farm last weekend. His heirloom strain of blackberrys are impressive. They set a ton of sweet juicy berrys. They they have incredable root systems sending lots of new canes, sometimes 10’ or farther from this years canes. They thrive with almost zero maintenance other then occasanaly mowing over dead areas and to control growth. They are the best example of working permaculture I have seen locally.
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Thanks @clarkinks. I have read that Tree-rat thread and actually ordered a Kania trap at the beginning of June, but they are still back-ordered and have been unable to ship me one. So more recently I ordered a WCS Tube-trap and it is already working well!
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Yea I’m having a great harvest this year too. The plants are so easy if I can get them through the winter. I picked 2.5 gallons yesterday. Pretty much off of 2 plants.
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Needing help.
There’s trouble in the blackberry patch. It doesn’t show in the video but the patch is surrounded by 2’ high 1" chicken wire and topped by bird netting supported by wire and PVC.
The first invader
The second group of invaders
So the question is: What is the chance of the tube trap working with either of these? And suggestions for bait?
Thanks for any help.
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How about a trap that is open on both ends and just stick it in the fence as an inviting "doorway?"Maybe put a few berries leading in along the ground? I’ve never tried it. Just an idea.
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Not sure what a tube trap is but a cage trap will take care of both coons and possums.
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39thparallel,
Glad you came over it was nice to have you here during blackberry season. Blackberries are a great crop in a lot of ways. Hopefully the plants will do as good for you as they have done for me. Thanks for the delicious vegetables!
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My wife and my mom, who is up here visiting us from Oklahoma for the first time, picked a lot of blackberries this weekend. All of our BB’s grow wild on the farm, so I don’t know what variety they are, and the canes are plentiful. I think she canned about 10 pints of them that evening, and made a bit of jelly with what was left. Our berries aren’t real sweet, and I’m not as big a fan of them as my wife, but she seems to like them.
Mom talked her into making a BB cobbler last week with some berries that were picked then. This was after she made a peach cobbler with fruit that Mom brought us from Porter, peach capital of OK, so they say- very tasty. Mom might have a bit of a sweet tooth…
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Great video, I find coons and possums to be very easy to live trap with sardines or even a wet canned fish flavored cat food, the problem with sardines is sometimes I eat them all up and have no bait.
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