Put them in a bowl and add sugar. I haven't heard of anything else other than delaying harvest as long as possible. BTW I like them with a little sugar.

Sorry, just being a wiseguy. Please ignore me!

A lot of it has to do with variety and growing conditions. More sun makes them sweeter, as does warmer weather. You may need to try different kinds and see which taste better to you.

Unfortunately, Triple Crown berry plants are too tender for many regions. If your sole intent is to eat fresh blackberries, you do have a problem. In baked goods involving pounds of berries, use of stevia powder allows the amount of sugar in the recipe to be far less.

For fresh berries, say a 1/2 cup serving, the amount of stevia needed would be tiny. Best to make a mixture of sugar and stevia and reserve it for sprinkling on fresh berries.

When they turn shiny black, they aren't ripe. When they lose the shine, then they are ready to eat.

If they are ripe you will get juice on your hands as you pick and handle them.

Ken Barber
Millbrook AL

now the mistery is I have about 10ft row of them and half of the row (towards south) is short bushes and have berries, the other half (toward north) is simply 5 ft tall shoots of green thorny thick sticks and practically no berries. Same bed, same conditions, same treatment. Nothing affects them diffrently except the north-to-south direction of the bed. Is that the reason?

jollyrd: It sounds like you are describing two different varieties of berry, or the difference between 1st and 2nd year canes. The compass direction of such a small row should not cause your berry variations. Are all the canes thorny?