Back in early March I wrote a post about planting 4 thornless blackberries in our front yard (here). With all of our shade, and the fact that I only planted 1 gallon plants in late January, I wasn't expecting more than a berry or two per plant. In the comments section of that post Dallas Fruit Grower wrote, " I'm betting that you get a crop this year" - and I'm sarcastically thinking, "Yeah, right, guy. What do you know?!? If by crop you mean 2 berries/plant, then yes, I will probably get a crop...." Well I am now officially thornless blackberry's biggest fan (and Dallas Fruit Grower's biggest believer)! I ended up getting a minimum of about 20 large berries per plant - and these babies aren't even a foot tall! At one point there were about 40 flowers per plant. We started harvesting the berries in mid April - which was also much sooner than I had expected. There are now only a few berries left on one of the plants. But all four bushes have already begun to put on new growth. I can. not. wait. for next years harvest! FYI - the pictures below were taken on May 5th. -Carrie
Wow, I too am surprised by how productive the little plants have been in such a short period of time. I am so encouraged by this post that I have given my husband the green light to plant the blackberries that he was considering. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeletePlant em', Pei! No regrets! And I haven't talked to Jason yet about it but I plan on planting more. When I planted them I did add a dose of Green Light Root Stimulator & Starter Solution per the nursery's recommendation, but other than that I've only added a bit of compost around the base of each plant, and a few days ago I added about 4 loose cups of worm castings around each of them as well (more on the castings in Friday's upcoming post!) -Carrie
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