It’s worth a shot. I’m going to have to do something this year with my new blackberry patch. Last summer the Orioles found my black raspberries and lost a few.
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i have nelson blackberries from fedco. came through -40 3 winters ago with no damage and they’re growing in a 4’ x 8’ raised bed. i have Chesters and triple crown i put in 2 years ago. i didn’t bury them and they are very much alive but the last 2 winters were more of a z6 winter. not z4. il let you guys know how they fare in the future. got Colombia star put in last spring. got them and 2 yr. old Colombia giant buried under 3 ft. of snow. Colombia giant gave me some berries last summer. 0 damage. we’ll see how they perform im a test year.
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im testing my t.c and chester unprotected to see how cold they really can take. been very warm the last 2 winters so no issues. id be worried about the damned voles setting up a nest in straw then eating the canes. not saying they cant in the thick fleece blankets im covering them with now. plus the blankets dont flatten the canes immediately like straw bales would . erect or semi erect would break if not slowly trained to bend before winter. too much work for me just to get berries.
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Yes they would. I used to get them as low as possible and cover them with leaves. I would wrap with burlap so they stay. Still too much work. It worked though. All my leaves were cut up too. I collect with lawn mower bag and leaf blower bag. Both shred the leaves.
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seen vids of people that prune them low, put chicken wire around them, then fill with leaves. still too much work.
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Indian Summer Red Rasps are on Ebay… i picked up 3 for $11.42 with free shipping… $3.59 each. I have no clue how they can sell them and ship them for free so cheap but i guess i will find out.
Not much info out there on it…its a very old variety…but its super cheap so im going to try them. Probably not worth growing for most folks.
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knock on wood ive had relatively good luck with plants from esty and ebay. as long as you dont have huge expectations, you wont be disappointed. hirts also. all have grown for me. just ordered 4 dwarf mulberries 6-10’’ delivered for 17.
saw this on my Heritage Raspberry leaves today, should I keep it or kill it?
i just sprayed a light mist of Neem oil on all my container berries to be safe
That is a cucumber beetle (spotted) - do you grow cucurbits (melon,squash, watermelon, cucumbers, etc)
It is a pest
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I picked up a couple of Coho red rasps today at Rural King… I did a search and one guy said that he was growing them but nothing else has been said about them. They ripen late…like late July/August i think… so probably why not many people grow them… but they sure look nice.
Berries Unlimited gives a pretty good description of them.
Here is the paper on them.
I also picked up some Latham rasps… they are the opposite and usually one of the firsts to fruit. Its also one of the most hardy and disease resistant ones also. I think they are rated to Z3.
Heres a pic from a guy that grows them in Alaska.
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my father had a patch or lathams. they’re a older variety but still very good. i miss going to visit them and grabbing a couple handfuls.
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Hey… l was thinking of adding 3 Kiowa to give them a test run here… but someone liked an older post of mine this week that had that image in it.
My older Illini Hardi blackberries suffer from rosette/double blossom. Kiowa is highly succeptable to that too.
In my illini berries… it probably reduces my crop by 1/3 depending on how wet our springs are (normally very wet).
So… guess I should avoid Kiowa or any blackberry that is moderately or highly succeptable.
I prefer blackberries that are vigorous, THORNY, ripen early (finish ripening by first week of July) to miss my SWD peak. Resistent to rosette/double blossom, and those dang red neck cane borers.
I have tried two west coast berries here Loganbery and Obsidian… and red neck cane borers are hard on them.
I have never seen a problem in my illini blackberries with cane borers.
In thornless blackberries… PAF, Caddo, Ponca, should work for me… but thornless blackberries here require bird protection… which i have never had a problem with on my super THORNED illini.
Is there a very vigorous THORNY Blackberry that…
Taste good, produces well
Ripens early (in June mostly)
Is resistent to rosette/double blossom
Resistent to cane borer
Nelsons ? Darrow ?
Other possible?
Ebony King is tough as nails here. Its imho an awesome berry if you like the taste of wild ones… sweet with a kick. I really like this plant and its berries.
Brazos is super early ripening in the right climates…probably yours. I am just getting going with these as i had the wrong plants sent by Willis Orchard. Bob Wells sells the correct plants.
Prime Ark 45 floricane crop should fit your desire as well. Isons.
Prime Ark Horizon isnt super thorny but it is thorny. It ripens on the fcane crop the same time as Ouachita and a few days later than 45. Its fcane crop is incredibly productive.
Nelson isnt worth growing imho.
Darrow isnt worth growing either… i do for novelty.
Choctaw is probably what you really want… It fruits in late May and finishes in mid june. its incredibly hard to find and is a cross of Darrow, Brazos and Rosborough. I got mine from a guy in Oklahoma thats been growing it for 30 yrs. TyTy lists it but it is a seedling that grows small skinny fruits… nothing like the named variety. All of their listings are lies on the thorned ones. They must make a fortune growing out seeds.
My illini should fruit this year and i will know if i have double rosette in the next months. I did figure out how to propagate it… and have about 10 more planted.
Most all thorny ones are gone from the nursery trade… and you wont find many folks other than me that even talk about them…
When U of Ark came out with thornless varieties they recommended skipping Choctaw, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Comanche and Shawnee… which was fantastic marketing. Kiowa has been the only one to survive that culling.
U of Ark had a couple of thorny ones that they didnt know what to do with and Stark and Gurneys sell them as Black Gem and Black Magic. I think these will be gone from the market soon. Black Magic is a cross of Prime Jim and Arapaho… and Black Gem is a cross of Black Magic and an unnamed variety. Both should be very early fruiting on the fcane crop… nobody really talks about these as far as i can tell.
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A couple of upcoming U of Ark cultivars… no clue if they will be sold to the public or overseas…
Danna
Kelly
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Echoing what some of @krismoriah said I think (especially moving to your new place with extra space) you can just out-produce both of these issues.
Have a zero maintenance patch of ebony kings that are too gnarly for the birds and by the house have a big row of prime Ark horizons that the birds can get a few of
And if they get double blossoms then that’ll just mean less berries fall onto the ground because you and the birds are sick of eating them
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Black magic is delicious and fruits from june to frost with very little care. No need to let them get soft either, they taste like grapefruit when underripe.
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Yes im growing Black Magic and Black Gem… before they get removed from the trade. I read some reports where people cut them down and removed them because they didnt know they had thorns. I never grew Prime Jim which is their parent and grandparent but it was said to be sweet with a twang which i like… Jim is also a parent of PA45 which is becoming hard to find also… i figure it will be gone soon also.
PA45 is insanely productive when the laterals are trained laterally on the fcane crop. Im not a fan of the pcane crop on most of these.
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I have Black Gem (you can see them in my video) and they’re thornless, just FYI. Apparently they may be primocane fruiting too?
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is it just me or is that an insane number of berries per square inch?
is that just the variety, or are you doing special pruning and fertilizing to produce that many on all your varieties?
edit: I see you mention training the laterals horizontally - is that the same kind of technique that the guy from Petals from the Past uses on his Kiowa?
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it must have been Black Magic i was thinking about with the people removing them bc of thorns…
If you are into cheesy acting and used car salesman pitches… here is a video about Black Gem
If you watch enough videos of the primocane fruiting varieties… the spotlight is almost always on the primocane crop… i posted a few weeks ago a video from LSU where they tell you how to prune and tip…and if you notice the floricane crop is near the bottom of the plant.
So to get a very nice crop of primocane berries you need to tip at 2 feet or less then there will be all kinds of laterals that form berries on the tips at around 5 feet if you tip alot of those laterals early… After all is said and done you remove the tips of those canes after fruiting which leaves you with canes that are short and compact which in turn gives you a floricane crop that is low to the ground and then while they are fruiting the primocanes emerge the next year and you start the process again.
By doing all of this you will not get a massive floricane crop like the pic above… and most of these floricane crops are very early June on the pcane cultivars. They almost have to be all early fruiting in order to allow the energy needed to form canes for the primocane crop as well.
So to get that kind of fcane crop you need to not prune anything at all which will get your pcane fruits at around 8 or 10 feet in the air…unless you train them laterally like primocane supression method. Or basically just wrap or lay them laterally along the top wire.
This is not shown in any of the videos or wording about these plants that i have seen… as the focus is on the pcane crop. So this kind of fcane crop is possible by not tipping at all…of anything… if you grow them straight up you will have fruits at 10 or 12 feet which isnt ideal… but the crop will be small.
So this year after trial and error and alot of figuring things out i think i will just grow all of my pcane cultivars this way as i want june bearing instead of late summer/fall bearing plants. I may even cut the tips off that form flowers to give more energy to the main canes… as an experiment. i have not seen this done yet and havent done it myself.
Training the laterals horizontally basically happens naturally if you dont tip. you see it alot in wild blackberries. There is a pic of a black raspberry that i posted somewhere on here that shows what happens when the laterals are horizontal.
So growing a pcane cultivar only for its fcane fruit is kind of like having a convertible but never taking the top down i guess. I have seen alot of posts on social medias where alot of folks just like cutting them to the ground each year because its so confusing and only growing them for the pcane crop.
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