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highlandernorth

Your experiences with red, black raspberries and blackberries?

highlandernorth
9 years ago

On a whim, I decided to try growing some raspberry plants back in 2003 for the 1st time, when first a client offered to let me dig up a few of her extremely spread-proficient red raspberries, which I planted behind my mother's house in this mostly open spot. These things sent out rhizomes like nothing I have ever seen, so that a new raspberry would pop up 6 feet away from its parent plant, just 1 year after the parent plant was planted. So they spread out all over this 40 feet x 20 feet area, and within 2 full seasons the original 11 plants I had planted had become probably 100 or more!

In the mean time I had also planted a few thornless, trailing blackberry plants I dug up from yet another client's home, which also spread out quite a bit over a couple years. They arent very sweet though.

I decided to try out Jewel black raspberries, so I found a place that sold black raspberries, which was hard 8-10 years ago, so I drove up and bought 2 potted Jewels. Unfortunately I had NO idea what black raspberry plants looked like then, and it turned out these 2 plants had been mislabeled, and werent even blacks to begin with, they were everbearing reds of some lackluster variety!

Then about a year later I bought 2 little boxes at Lowes that contained 2-each Cumberland black raspberry plants in these 16" tall boxes. They were very small, thin plants, but I planted 3 at my house, on the left side. Well, these 3 Cumberlands blew my mind over the next 2 years, as they became so thick that each would have 20+ healthy stems that grew up, over, and back down. But when they produced in the late spring, these 3 plants would fill a 10" wide strainer bowl with berries at least 2-3 times if I had made it a point to pick most or all of them, Unfortunately there were just so many berries, that most were left on the bushes.... It was crazy how much fruit production these 3 plants put out! They were symmetrical, and they actually looked good at that side front corner of my house, especially when their canes turned the dusty burgundy-red color in the fall and winter, even after losing their leaves they looked good, and I got complements from people who thought they were just ornamental plants!

I also grew a thorny blackberry plant with an Indian name that I dont remember, and this plant grew blackberries almost twice the size of storebought berries, even the large ones! These things were almost hand-fruit in size, and you'd eat them by taking 2-3 bites off them! They were also pretty flavorful and relatively sweet off the vine if you picked them at just the right degree of ripeness. They had big thorns, but the enormous berries made it worth it! I just dont remember which Indian name was the right one!

I grew 2 gold-orange types of raspberries(Anne I think), and gave 1 of 2 identical plants to a client while keeping the other for myself. I was forced to plant here's in the terrible rocky clay soil at their house, but planted mine in nice, mixed bagged soil. When they both started producing, the plant at the client's home tasted so much different and so much better than the one at my house that I was amazed. It was night and day, bad versus awesome! The only difference was her orange raspberry plant was planted in terribly hard, dense rocky clay, and mine wasnt!

I sold the house and lost all the berries. I still have some raspberries at my Moms and some blackberries. Tell us your best and worst berry stories?

Comments (4)

  • drew51 SE MI Z5b/6a
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I have had a few good years where the birds have not discovered the berries. This year one robin has found the berries. He takes so few, I still have not netted. My dog keeps him away too. But next year I'm going to net the crops. I already have the nets. It doesn't seem worth doing for the handful of berries I would save. Nobody grows anything, so generations of birds never seen raspberries,blackberries and strawberries. Very few grow wild around here, it's in the middle of suburbia. Not many fields around virtually none. This also has decreased other pest pressure too. I have to move in a few years, and I'm bummed about it. Such an excellent area to grow.

  • spartan-apple
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I got a "free" Jewel black raspberry from Raintree because
    I ordered before January 1st and spend enough money.

    It came in a tiny pot (I presume from tissue culture?). Very wimpy but had a note that it would grow like a weed. It sure did! This year being year 2, I finished picking the crop
    a week ago.

    Next year should even be better as the primocanes are much bigger stemmed and Lots of them. I did not realize how huge one raspberry plant could get. I am impressed.

    Even though I cut off all the tips of the primocanes late last summer when they got to ground level, a few got missed and rooted in giving me 4 free plants this year. A friend was very happy to receive them.

    My only bad news is birds! The fruit started to turn black but not sweet enough to pick. Suddenly 1/2 of the crop was gone. I assumed my children had picked them but they had not. I then netted the plant with black netting which was successful but some fruits had bird pecks in them.

    I had anticipated the neighborhood children might be the biggest problem to getting fruit not the birds. Next year I will be more diligent to net them as soon as they start turning ripe.

  • highlandernorth
    Original Author
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Its funny, I hear people talking about birds getting most of their berries, but in the decade I have grown berries of all sorts, I dont recall ever having a real problem with birds eating my berries. I did have some issues with blueberries and birds, and maybe a few raspberries, but it wasnt ever to the point that I needed to drape nets over anything other than my blueberries, and I dont even have to do that anymore because they dont seem interested in the 2 rabbiteye blueberries I have been growing over the past 3 years.

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