I really like this type of trellis setup for Raspberries or Blackberries…
and I think that if you used this type of trellis… you could plant them a little closer than recommended.
Some of my earlier berry beds are not done like this… the last 3 I setup are…
If you watch it to the end, it shows how the canes are spread out and tied to a cable run on either side of the bed… which makes room in the middle for your new primocanes to come up thru…
And while those new primocanes are coming up in the middle… your fruiting canes are on the outside, for easy picking of ripe fruit.
Blackberries, or Raspberries… for me … going forward I will do like this.
If you don’t want to watch the vid… here is the pic from the end…
Kansas has chiggers, ticks and mosquitos but they pick and chose who to bite typically mostly leaving me alone. That limited immunity is not recognized in states like Missouri and Arkansas my entire body up to my chest looked like your foot once. I’m not a big sweets eater but they are attracted by people who smell sweet. If you wear cologne Kansas chiggers will eat you up. Deodorant, after shave, cigarettes all seem to attract them. The tick bites were bad and not fun but the poison plants were worse. Was in bed two weeks sweating out the poison of the contents of those old growth woods. Don’t get poison oak and poison ivy typically ( had it once and it was mild) but there is something in those woods that makes me very sick. My grandmother called it poison cedar. She said she never saw it any other place than there where I was. Ticks don’t die in the winter there they are very much alive under the normal 2 -3 foot of leaves that are on the forest floor. It’s a misery unmatched by anything. I’ve had my chest and belly burned once as a child on a trash barrel and it was similar. You lay there basically with your skin oozing a watery substance until you don’t anymore. Ticks are no problem in small areas but the more hundreds or thousands of bites you have the misery multiplies. I’m glad you posted those photos. Poison ivy and ticks are companions to blackberries.
This past summer, I estimated the tick population on my land at 50,000 per acre. On 132 acres, that works out to 6.6 million ticks. Indians used to burn off the forests every 2 or 3 years in part because it kept the ticks down.
The end goal is to have the most laterals, with the most nodes, and the highest percentage of those nodes allowing budbreak.
There is only so much time in a season (biennial canes) to create the best scenario.
Canes produce laterals, and laterals produce laterals. Laterals produce buds, buds produce berries.
So in a perfect world- Tip Cane at 6ft, which forces laterals, tip those laterals at 4.5ft which forces those laterals to create laterals. This creates the most buds per cane in a managable situation.
In an unmanaged situation with canes allowed to grow 10-12ft almost the same amount of buds are created, however at the expense of cane length.
Personally i would rather have a 6ft cane with same amount of buds as a 12ft cane.
Tipping laterals at 18 inches reduces buds significantly. So less yield. In a backyard situation this is fine, if only concern is fresh eating and a managable compact plant.
@clarkinks … that was not my foot… just some poor guy who put that pic online. You can find plenty of seed tick pics on google…
Mine have been in even worse shape in the past though… when I was about 17 I went on a dove hunt with my dad… and not long after we got there I noticed my ankles burning itching… I got a load of seed ticks early and we stayed late… the next few weeks were torture… my ankles and many other areas developed big sores from all the scratching. It was awefull.
I learned to prep for those things.
PS… my wife and I can sit on the front porch on summer evenings… and the skeeters will just eat me up… but none will bother her.
She is extra sweet… to me… but evidently not to skeeters.
Ticks will get on me… and bite… they get on her and just keep crawling around… hardly ever bite.
What ever she has that causes that… wish I had it.
I have one huge suggestion that will save a lot of grief. Get a tube of benzocaine or lidocaine cream and keep it on hand for just about anything that itches. You can find it on Amazon or may be able to ask for it at a pharmacy. For minor burns, chigger, mosquito, tick bites, it does an amazing job of suppressing the itching. One brand is sold as “chiggerX”. It is sold for hemorrhoids, itching, etc.
Additional info that can help. You can combine lidocaine cream with cortisone cream to make a very effective salve for both itch/pain relief and to promote rapid healing. My favorite mixture is 3 parts aloe vera lotion, 1 part lidocaine cream (10%), and 1 part cortisone cream (10%). It will take care of sunburn, itching, bug bites, poison ivy, and minor scrapes and abrasions. If you have an open wound, add 1 part triple antibiotic ointment to the mix. Don’t mix it in advance as it rapidly degrades once exposed to air. It can be stored overnight in a refrigerator.
Kiowa is a monster, but gosh is it hardy. I have ouichita, caddo and kiowa. The Kiowa is the biggest by far, and produced many big berries last year. The canes have a girth that is nearly two inches thick. The ouichita and ponca, not so much.
The main drawback on the kiowa is that the thorns are horrific. Kiowa and Ouichita both had the same amount of suckering this past year.
Your posts and those of others have been like a course in blackberries, really appreciate it. Each new fruit a person takes on has its own universe of do’s/don’ts/bests/maybes.
Chiggers are the devil. We don’t have them in south Louisiana, thank God! I do get them in southwest Mississippi however. I had them on my hands once and was quite miserable. I work in a dermatology clinic and tried injecting the bites with lidocaine to get some relief from the itching. To my dismay it didn’t work at all, zero relief, nada. I have access to the strongest steroids made and nothing has been successful in relieving the itch from chigger bites.
My experience was the opposite. I had over 100 chigger bites on both ankles about 2 years ago. First I got rid of the chiggers by aggressively scrubbing with a scouring pad, then I coated the area with benzocaine cream. It was effective though I had to re-apply every 2 or 3 hours. You are correct that if the chiggers are left in your skin they will continue to itch as they dissolve skin cells.
my mother used to use calamine lotion for bug bites and such. we have some ticks moving up here in the last 10 years but still pretty rare. they started showing up when the state 20 yrs ago, started stocking wild turkeys up here that were caught in s. Maine. they never thought about the ticks those birds carried. geniuses!
Fifty years in west Texas and lots of outdoor time. I’ve never seen a tick or had one on me. No chiggers either. You guys can have your rain, greenery, and forest I’ll take the sun and lack of pests, both human and fruit.
I think in the end the best farmer or orchardist adapts to his soil and climate and plants… and encourages those things to grow to the best of their potential.
Forums like this and others as well as youtube etc have provided alot of different techniques and tricks that i would never read in a book, nor learn from my neighbor. Its a good time to learn.
I have Ouachita… got first fruit last year. First ripe berries June 15 here in TN.
I liked them, very good, nice size, good flavor, sweet enough.
But by the end of first week in July, SWD infested… I had to bag them to get good fruit for the last half of their fruiting period. I did that but would prefer not to.
Kiowa seems to have impressed you and BIG thorns do not bother me at all. I have some of those already with Illini.
How would you rate the Taste/Flavor of Kiowa to Ouachita ? as good ? better ? worse ?
And do they ripen before or after Ouachita for you ?
To get good blackberries without SWD and bagging… I really need a blackberry that ripens and finishes by early July.
Per Stark Bro’s… Ouachita ripens June… Kiowa ripens Early June.
Sounds like Kiowa might be a little earlier ?
