Enjoy Fresh Blackberries

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Choose the best site. Look for a healthy thicket or emerging stand that is easily accessible and not near a busy road. Roadside picking is dangerous, and the berries are exposed to pollutants and dust.

Dress for the job by wearing thick pants and a jacket that is unlikely to be ripped by sharp thorns, plus heavy gloves.

Use pruning loppers to prune back the tips of the young, live canes (in upright wild varieties) to 6 to 8 feet if they were not tipped back in summer. Young canes of bearing age may be green or reddish brown, while older canes are dark brown to black.

Improve productivity in partially shaded sites by removing low branches from nearby trees.

Sprinkle a balanced organic fertilizer over the plants’ root zones, and then blanket the ground with a 6-inch deep mulch of leaves, straw or other organic material. Also mulch the perimeter path you will use when harvesting your crop.

In spring, control the spread of your patch by severing sprouts that emerge out of bounds. One swipe with a swing blade will eliminate such canes, as well as weeds.

Practice good post-picking maintenance. After the berries finish ripening, pinch back the tips of the longest new canes of erect varieties. Fertilize and mulch the patch again.

Canes typically die after two years or so, and in the wild these dead canes provide great habitat for birds and other small critters. However, it’s a good idea to prune out the dead canes that are within easy reach to minimize the potential for disease and to make picking easier. Prune them at ground level, snip the canes into 2-foot long pieces and compost them.

A little effort will make for bigger, better berries that are easier to pick, but simply creating access is all one really needs to do to make good use of a wild blackberry patch. Wild thickets can become productive, low-maintenance berry gardens if all you do is keep their perimeter mowed.

Breeding Better Blackberries

There are wild blackberries and dewberries (a common name for trailing, early bearing wild blackberries) native to climates from Alaska to Arizona, but only a few are good producers of flavorful berries. University-level blackberry breeding work began in 1909, but for 300 years before that, North American gardeners had been selecting and replanting superior native strains, many of which crossed with brambles introduced from Europe. The wild blackberries along your fencerow are not likely to be pure natives, but in this case, who cares? Many of the best varieties — including the heavy-bearing, thornless ‘Doyle’ variety — began as chance seedlings from random crosses.

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