How to properly grow and care for blackberries?

An amazing blackberry grows in the wild. The healing properties are superior to raspberries, but they are not grown on a large scale in Russia.... And in the garden, blackberries are becoming more and more popular. Let's look at a detailed description and instructions for proper care, growing, reproduction and pruning of blackberry bushes at home, which will be useful to both the experienced and novice gardener.

Technology for growing blackberries at home in the country

Plantation selection

Growing blackberries at home

Blackberries respond to spring frosts and low temperatures. The landing site should be chosen without access to cold winds... The best option may be the western and southern parts of the house.

The soil

For breeding upright varieties, light loams are suitable, and heavy loams for climbing species. The plant thrives in sandy soil... Temporary flooding has a detrimental effect on young shoots. To breed fruitful blackberry bushes in the country, it is undesirable to plant a crop on calcareous soils, since the plants will be deficient in iron and magnesium.

Predecessors

We must not forget about the previous culture. Favorable for blackberries on a personal plot are considered legumes, beets, carrots, cucumbers, zucchini.

Preparatory work

The site is prepared for several years for planting, and is left fallow.... It is cleared of weeds and pathogens. Six months before planting, in the fall, apply organic and mineral fertilizers to the ground. If the land is saturated with nutrients, then organic matter can be excluded.

How to grow blackberries in a garden, tips for novice gardeners

Planting in spring

First of all, it is necessary to decide on the variety of blackberries, paying attention to the climatic conditions of the place of growth: the Moscow region, Siberia or the middle zone of Russia. Planting material should be chosen with a developed root system, which is better purchased in nurseries. The seedling should have 2 stems and a developed bud near the roots.

The distance between blackberry seedlings depends on the shoot formation of the variety

Maintain the distance between the planting material 1 meter, rows - 2 meters. This method is called tape and is suitable for varieties with a high level of shoot formation.

With a bush type of planting a scheme of 1.8x1.8 (m) is used, 2 seedlings are planted in each hole and are acceptable for varieties with low shoots.

The planting material is lowered into the groove and the roots are carefully straightened. The soil with fertilizer is poured from above, the basal bud is covered up to 3 cm below the soil. The top layer of the bush is mulched, compacted and watered. Pour from 3 to 6 liters of water under each bush.... The last step is to prune the seedling up to 20 cm and remove the fruit stem.

Care

You do not need special knowledge of caring for blackberries in order to grow a healthy bush, it is enough to fulfill the following requirements:

1. Watering.
2. Weed weeding.
3. Top dressing.
4. Annual pruning.
5. Formation of bushes.
6. Destroy pests.
7. Fight disease in a timely manner.

Blackberry breeding methods in the Moscow region, Siberia and central Russia

In the garden, blackberries propagate vegetatively (by layering, offspring, cuttings). You can propagate this culture by seed method.... It is used to preserve the varietal characteristics of the crop.

Layers

Blackberry propagation scheme with horizontal layering

1. Prepare the groove, in the first ten days of August, 15 cm deep. Place a healthy annual shoot in it and sprinkle it with earth. In this case, do not cut the twig from the uterine bush and leave the crown on the surface.
2. Cut the upper part of the shoot by 10 cm to stop growth.
3. Press down the digging site with a heavy objecte.g. with a stone, brick or pinned down with wire.
4. Mulch the soil and regularly water the digging site. Mulch (fallen leaves, sawdust) retains moisture and prevents weeds from growing.
5. Rooting will take place in 2 months. Shoots are cut off from the mother bush, are carefully dug out with a pitchfork, and planted in a permanent place along with an earthen lump.
6. This kind of reproduction can be postponed to September or the first decade of October.

Apical shoots

Reproduction of garden blackberries by apical shoots

1. Tilt the top of the shoot and dig into the ground... At the same time, the tip is cut off.
2. For fast rooting in a stem that will be in the ground, cut the bark.
3. Separate the seedling from the bush and it is necessary to replant in the spring.

Offspring

Reproduction of garden blackberries by root suckers

1. Young shoots from the root or offspring have bushes 3 years old.
2. In the spring, when persistent warm weather sets in (May, June), offspring are dug up with roots and a lump of earth. Stem height 10-15 cm.
3. Planting material selected from healthy and high-yielding bushes.
4. Plant the seedlings on a picking bed for growing... As soon as the bush reaches standard size, it is planted in a permanent place.
5. Offspring can replant in autumn (Aug. Sept). To do this, choose the most developed shoots with a thickness of 8-10 cm and a root system of 15-20 cm.
6. Before boarding cut the twig to 30-40 cm.
7. Landing fill the pit with mineral fertilizers.

When planting in autumn, it is undesirable to use organic fertilizers (humus, compost). It is them that insects and rodents feed on in the winter. By the spring, the seedling may die.

Hybrids and large-fruited blackberries do not produce offspring... Therefore, this breeding method is unacceptable for them.

Cuttings

Root

1. Early spring or late autumn a fruiting bush is dug up by the root.
2. Divided into piecesleaving 60 cm of root system. The stalk should be 0.5-1.5 cm thick and 10 cm long.
3. The petiole is planted in a permanent place, or on a dive bed, and after a year use it as planting material.
4. The beds are being prepared and with a step between cuttings of 20 cm, in rows - 80, planting material is planted and watered regularly, until complete rooting.
5. Weeding is carried out in the summer from weeds and loosening of the soil.
6. By autumn, the cuttings will have several shoots. and a developed root system.
7. Cuttings can be stored in a cool place during the winter.... The twigs are placed in wet sand. In the spring, a transplant is needed in open ground.

Blackberry varieties without thorns are not propagated in this way. Otherwise, the plant will grow with thorns.

Green cuttings

1. In July, a branch is cut off from the green shoot one third of it from the top.
2. The stalk must consist of a stem, buds and one leaf.
3. Process the twig a rooting stimulant such as root or zirconium.
4. Then, prepare cups of soil (peat and vermiculite in equal parts, expanded clay) and plant cuttings.
5. Cover containers plastic bag.
6. Root system formed in one month.
7. The plant is planted to a permanent place.
8. Reproduction can be combined with pruning shoots.
9. Most suitable varieties: Black Satine, Thornless Logan.

Seeds

A full-fledged seedling can be grown from blackberry seeds

1. Prepare light soil, wet sand or peat chips.
2. Leave the seeds for 3 hours to swell in water.... Then drain the excess liquid and place in a damp cloth for 3 days.
3. Swollen grain seed cover with prepared substrate 8 mm.
4. Compact the soil and pour.
5. Place containers in a cool place with a temperature of 5 degrees C for 2 months.
6. During this time monitor soil moisture... It should not be wet or dry.
7. Further, bring containers into a warm room (20 degrees C) for germination.
8. The presence of three leaves on seedlings serve as a signal for a dive.

Why do you need autumn pruning?

Blackberry bushes bear fruit only once. If the first year is spent on its full-fledged cultivation to lignified stems, then in the second year of life it blooms and bears fruit. This is where her fruiting cycle ends. Therefore, from two-year-old specimens, you should get rid of and properly form a bush. As:

• young growth will not receive enough nutrients from the soil, and wasted on old copies;
• young shoots do not ripen, the berries become smaller;
• thickening of the planting occurs... There is no access to the sun's rays in the middle of the bush. Hence frost resistance decreases. Harvesting becomes more difficult. Berries lose their sugar content.

Young specimens should also be pruned to stimulate flowering for the next season. Pruning in the fall strengthens the bush, normalizes the load on it, improves aging.

How to properly prune blackberries and form a bush in the fall

Algorithm of actions:

• as soon as the crop is harvested, the plantation should be inspected and start pruning two-year-old blackberry bushes, to form a sturdy bush. It is imperative to remove hemp. This will make it possible to avoid purulent processes during hibernation;
• young specimens with thin and short stems are removed, that is, unformed and unripe bushes;
• branches are destroyed, damaged by diseases and pests;
• remaining young growth is shortened by one fourth... Make a cut above the kidney;
• for uniform load on the bush, 6-8 shoots should be left... Considering that the plant will hibernate, perhaps their freezing, we leave two shoots more than 8-10, and in the spring we inspect the plant. In order for the berries to be large and to have a good harvest, 5-6 live shoots are needed. Frozen branches are removed.

Leave no extra plants, even if they are healthy. Excessive density harms the future harvest.

Formation of an upright bush

Scheme of the formation of an erect blackberry bush

1. Trellis is being prepared, length 1.8 m... with wire in several rows. The step between them is 30-50 cm.
2. Young shoots of the bush are tied to the bottom row and spread evenly from the center of the plant, parallel to the ground.
3. Fruiting branches are centered.
4. In the fall, after the harvest, the central part is cut to the root, and the young are cut off and sheltered for the winter.

Formation of a bush of creeping varieties

Scheme of the formation of a blackberry bush of creeping varieties

1. Creeping varieties have long shoots. The use of trellises allows you to increase the yield, as the branches remain with the maximum length... Along the trellis, they are placed fan-shaped in different directions from the fruiting stems on the three lower wires.
2. In the spring, the stems are pruned to 1.5 meters.
3. New shoots appear during the growing season, they are also tied to the wire horizontally on both sides in a fan-like manner. Only next year will they bear fruit. This method facilitates periodic pruning and harvesting.
4. It is possible to arrange branches on the wire in both directions without a central fastening... Fruiting stems to one side, young shoots to the other. Each year, berry picking will alternate from left to right.

Conclusion

The chosen place and proper care of the blackberry: feeding, watering, pruning, processing will allow you to get high yields and delight the family with medicinal berries.

Everyone knows the blackberry as a wild berry, which is very inconvenient to pick due to the fact that it grows in thorny dense thickets. But breeders have long turned the blackberry into a thornless plant with large sweet fruits. In some countries, hybrid garden large-fruited blackberries are grown on an industrial scale, but in our country few people know about them and even fewer gardeners grow them.

This article will fill the knowledge gap and, after reading it, you might want to plant this interesting and useful plant in your garden.

Planting blackberries

The modern garden blackberry is a vine with a perennial rhizome. It is resistant to pests and diseases, bears fruit stably and does not have thorns. The berries ripen in August, very large. They are more acidic than raspberries, but richer in vitamin C. If you provide a support for the blackberry, it can climb to a height of 2 m, densely braiding everything around, so it can be successfully used for vertical gardening.

There are erect blackberry varieties, but they do not have the frost resistance necessary for our climate.

Blackberry garden planting begins in the spring, when the ground warms up. In the middle lane, this happens at the end of April. Planting blackberries in spring allows the plant to root well and prepare for wintering.

Planting blackberries in the fall is fraught with its death, since the plant will not have time to take root. It must be remembered that garden strawberries, unlike their wild forest congeners, are a southern plant and require a special approach in terms of wintering. If the seedlings are purchased in the fall, then they are placed in a burrow until spring.

For landing, select a sunny place, protected from the winds. Blackberries are pollinated by insects, and wind can interfere with pollination and damage the leaves. The ideal location for a blackberry plantation would be the southwest slope, sheltered from the east and north winds.

The culture thrives on well-drained loamy and sandy loam soil. If there is a lot of calcium in the soil (outwardly this is expressed in the fact that the earth has a granular structure), then the blackberries will have to be fed annually with iron and magnesium. The optimum acidity of the soil solution is 6.

A plot for blackberries in the fall is freed from weeds and dug up, adding 10 kilograms of humus or compost per m2. In the spring, when planting, a tablespoon of superphosphate is added to the wells.

Planting thornless blackberries is no different from planting ordinary ones, but it is better to buy planting material from nurseries with a good reputation, since there is a high risk of purchasing ordinary blackberries, and not a modern large-fruited variety.

Thornless blackberries cannot be propagated by roots, as thorns will appear on the seedlings. It is propagated by green cuttings cut from young shoots.

The seedling should have a strong root system and formed buds on the rhizome. The aerial part should consist of 1-2 stems at least 5 mm thick.

The size of the blackberry pit depends on the age and size of the seedling. If the blackberry is used not for vertical gardening, but as a berry crop, then it is planted at a distance of at least 1 m from buildings and other plantings, given that the plant grows rapidly.

Planting blackberries can be:

• tape;
• bush.

With the bush method, 2-3 seedlings are planted in the pit, and the pits themselves are placed in the corners of a square with a side of 2 m. The tape method is suitable for growing vigorous varieties. The distance between the belts should be at least 2 m, the seedlings are planted in the furrows with an interval of 1 m.

Blackberries quickly bear fruit. Observing these rules for planting blackberries, you can become the owner of a fruiting plantation in a year and collect tasty and healthy berries.

Features of caring for blackberries

Now you know how to plant blackberries, and if you get some seedlings, you can plant them correctly. If a garden blackberry has already been planted in the garden, cultivate and care for it in terms of watering and dressing by analogy with raspberries. In all other respects, the agricultural technology of this berry differs sharply from what gardeners of a temperate climate are used to.

In fact, blackberries are the same raspberries, only more aggressively growing. For this reason, if a blackberry is already growing in some corner of the garden, it is absolutely impossible to plant raspberries next to it. Firstly, these crops have common diseases, and secondly, blackberries will simply "strangle" raspberries underground with their roots, preventing them from growing, even if there is a small distance between the plants on the soil surface.

If you like the studless blackberry, planting and caring for it will require knowledge and some experience. The cultivation of this culture cannot be called simple. Best of all, those gardeners who have experience in growing grapes will "cope" with the garden hybrid blackberry, since the agricultural technology of these crops is similar.

The scourges of the hybrid thornless blackberry grow beyond hours and the problem quickly arises of where to place them. Blackberries, like raspberries, bear fruit on biennial shoots. Therefore, it is most reasonable to install trellises on both sides of a row and wind fruiting branches on one side, and only young ones growing this year on the other.

The trellis must be installed thoroughly, since the vine, along with the side shoots, will grow impressive in size. And when the harvest begins to ripen on it, its mass will grow many times over. Every two meters of a row, strong supports with a height of 180-200 cm are dug in, between which galvanized wire is pulled at a height of 50, 100 and 170 cm.

In preparation for wintering, the lashes are removed from the trellis, wound into a ring and laid on the ground. From above, they are pressed down with a board and covered with non-woven material.

Caring for blackberries in the spring is to get the whips from under the shelters and throw them on the trellis. Live green leaves should be preserved on the lashes. It is on these overwintered shoots that berries will appear this year.

Hybrid garden blackberry per unit area gives a yield 5 times higher than raspberries.

During the summer, when the plant is blooming and the harvest is ripening, the culture needs watering, weeding and feeding. The plant quickly develops a gigantic vegetative mass and carries out many nutrients from the soil that must be replaced.

When a blackberry has just been planted on the site, spring care for young plantings consists only in abundant watering. Fruiting bushes are fed with urea in the spring. A tablespoon of fertilizer is dissolved in a bucket of water and poured into each well in a bucket of such a solution.

Cold well water should not be used for irrigation and preparation of fertilizer solutions. It is best to install a container on the site for collecting precipitation or heating well water in the sun.

Garden blackberry soil care

A good harvest of berries cannot be obtained without careful soil care. In the first year after planting, vegetables can be grown in the aisles, but in subsequent years, the soil between the ribbons and in the rows is kept like black steam. Weeds are removed, the soil is loosened after each moistening to a depth of 10 cm.

To make it easier to care for the soil, you can mulch it with straw, sawdust or deciduous litter.Mulch with a thickness of more than five centimeters will prevent weeds from germinating, retain moisture and protect the soil from crusting.

Blackberry pruning

It is enough to plant a blackberry or raspberry once and you do not have to worry about their reproduction. But if raspberries reproduce by horse offspring, then the tops of the shoots take root in the blackberries, and they do it on their own as soon as they touch the soil. Therefore, without garter and shaping, the blackberry quickly turns into impassable thickets.

You can theoretically know a lot about growing blackberries, but pruning perennial vines is always a "dark forest" for novice gardeners. But blackberries are not raspberries, and without pruning, they will quickly turn from a berry culture into dense thickets, suitable only for gardening a gazebo.

How to prune a hybrid garden blackberry? Trimming of lashes is carried out three times per season: in spring, summer and autumn. During each pruning, different goals are pursued.

Pruning blackberries in the spring is done to free the bushes from the shoots that have frozen over the winter. This is the so-called "sanitary pruning", which all perennial plants need in spring.

In the spring, cut out all dry and broken branches. Completely frozen stems that have not survived the winter are cut at soil level. Frozen tops are trimmed to a healthy spot with a green cambium on the cut.

In May, the tops are removed on the shoots of the current year to accelerate branching.

Pruning blackberries in summer is needed to stimulate the setting of fruit buds on the side shoots, where the bulk of the crop is formed. In June, the bushes of the first year of life and one-year growth on old plantings are cut off. In lateral shoots that have reached a length of 50 cm, pinch the tops, and all weak lateral shoots are removed.

Pruning blackberries in case their shoots bear fruit this year is done differently. The purpose of such pruning is to preserve overwintered branches as much as possible and prevent young growth from weakening the plant. To do this, the shoots that have appeared are removed all summer, leaving only the first shoots that have grown in May - they will be the strongest, winter well and give a large harvest.

In autumn, the fruiting stems are cut under the root, since there will be no berries on them next year. Only shoots that have grown this season are sent for wintering, cutting them to a height of 200 cm.

It can be seen that blackberries require maintenance, and pruning them is not an easy task. But this culture has two important advantages: with proper agricultural technology, it is capable of producing excellent yields and is not damaged by pests.

In summer cottages, you can find a variety of bushes that bear fruit with berries. Most often, you can see raspberry bushes, but for some reason summer residents do not particularly like his fellow blackberry. This plant is not inferior to raspberries in taste, beauty, or even complexity of care. Blackberries are great for canning, making jam, or just for eating.

Blackberry bushes are small compared to raspberries, and the presence of thorns in small quantities, but it still complicates the harvest. In all other respects, this plant is completely identical to raspberries in care and pruning. It is worth noting that blackberries have one peculiarity. It can bear fruit even during periods of drought or if the bushes are completely left without attention and care, but the amount of harvest will decrease. Ripening of berries occurs in different areas, regardless of the amount of sunlight. The berries can be considered ripe as soon as they turn black.

Planting blackberries

Blackberry shrubs, although they do not need strict care, a lot of moisture and sunlight, can still help increase the fruiting of shrubs. For example, when planting a plant, you need to calculate the place so that the blackberry ends up was protected from blowing... This, in turn, will not only increase the quantity of the crop and its quality, but also help in winter the shrubs simply do not die at low temperatures. In the area where there is no wind, snow will not fall from the bushes, which means that they will be covered with snow all winter.

In addition, blackberries, like any other plant, must be pollinated, and in strong winds, bees cannot fly up and do their job. Gusts of wind can even break the fragile branches of the blackberry, especially after the winter period, when the plant has not yet gained its full strength.

As mentioned above, when planting blackberries, you can not attach importance to the amount of sunlight. Fruiting occurs equally well both in a darkened place and in an open area, but it is impossible to plant in complete darkness. If sunlight stops reaching the plant, the berries will become smaller over time, and this will negatively affect the quality and taste of the crop.

Planting blackberries in the garden is best produce in springtime... In the southern parts of the country, I also practice planting in the autumn period of the year, but nevertheless, the best performance is achieved in the bushes that were planted in the spring. In this case, the cuttings take root better, and the likelihood of plant death when the cold period begins.

Soil is the very element that does not play any role in the cultivation of blackberries. Usually, planting is carried out near the fence, in order not only to increase the convenience of harvesting, but also to further refine this part of the garden plot, hiding the fence.

Step-by-step procedure for planting blackberries

The whole procedure for planting blackberry bushes can be split into several stages, in order to subsequently achieve high results during plant engraftment.

1. Before you start planting the plant, you need to clean the cuttings from the dry crust and put in water for one night.
2. On the garden plot, you must first prepare a place for planting blackberry bushes. The pits should be of the optimal size, but this is not the main thing. Basically, you need to look at the distance between the holes. During growth, shrubs can grow to colossal sizes, so you need to leave a distance between the pits, which will be about 80 cm.This distance is necessary so that the blackberry bushes do not intertwine and interfere with each other. In addition, the passage between the plants will make harvesting easier.
3. It is best to fertilize the soil before planting. The selection of fertilizers is more symbolic, so you can take ordinary humus and potash fertilizing. The humus should be stirred in equal proportions with the soil and introduced into the hole even before the bushes are planted. Next, you need to add potash fertilizers in the amount of 40 grams. Good feeding can guarantee quick survival of shrubs in a new place.
4. After fertilizing the soil, you can place the cuttings in a hole and bury them with the rest of the earth, which was previously mixed with humus. The ground around the shrub is compacted, but it will be possible to water it only after a few days.

Best for growing in a garden blackberry is suitable... The most popular varieties include:

• agave;
• abundant;
• darrow.

These varieties are great for courting at their summer cottage. Lack of thornc simplifies harvesting, and if the plant is no longer taken care of, then it will not grow as much as other blackberry varieties.

Basic tips for caring for blackberries

Although blackberries can grow on their own, the first year is the most difficult for them. At this time, you need to take all the necessary measures for the plant to take root in a new place. This includes all basic maintenance, pruning and watering activities.The entire cultivation procedure must be especially carefully followed in the first year, and then after the growth of the bushes, some stages of the procedure can be omitted.

First of all you need pay enough attention to watering... In the first year, it simply does not make sense to expect a harvest, but you should not give up watering the blackberry, because just at this time the crown and the strength of the root branches are formed. As a result, proper watering in the first year can significantly increase yields in subsequent years. As a result, massive roots help the plant to feel comfortable in dry weather. Raspberries cannot boast of such quality.

Watering in the early stages of berry bushes should be abundant, but still do not overdo it. It is necessary to increase the amount of moisture as the blackberries germinate and during the beginning of the ripening of the crop. In addition, moisture should freely flow to the root system, so before this procedure, it is better to loosen the bud first. Blackberry bushes do not like it very much when the soil is compacted too much. In addition, with dense soil layers, moisture simply does not reach the root system, but disperses in different directions from the shrub. Fertilization before watering is carried out exclusively in the first year after planting, and then in the summer you can do without feeding the plant.

To increase the growth activity of blackberries, fertilizers may be needed only in the spring season. Apply top dressing needed once. For this, it is best to use components such as:

• mullein;
• ash;
• peat;
• humus;
• bird droppings.

In the form of additional fertilizers, phosphorus, nitrogen and potash fertilizers can be used, but there is no particular need for them. Shrubs do not require a large amount of minerals, and they receive all the main components exclusively from the composition of the soil.

The main stages of pruning blackberries

Pruning blackberries is an important stage, which ultimately determines how strongly and evenly the shrub will germinate, and already from these conditions the amount of harvest will flow and convenience of picking berries... If you do not prune, then you can get an impenetrable jungle in your summer cottage. In order to avoid such problems, it is necessary to undertake pruning of the stems about 3-4 times during the period of active growth. Pruning should be done very often, because the growth of branches in blackberries is fast. If you do not want to spend too much time on pruning, then it is best to plant thornless bushes.

The first pruning begins after the end of winter, as soon as the temperature exceeds the beginning of the growing season. This time can be determined by the presence of buds that only appear on the stems of plants. All stems that have been damaged during the winter or have dried out should be trimmed. Usually, no more than 15 shoots or 8 shoots on one of the bushes are left per square meter. Throughout the rest of the year, new shoots should be pruned so they don't weaken the plant.

Re-pruning shoots called pinching. It is produced at a time when the shoots have already grown. Usually, each of them needs to be shortened by no more than 15 cm, but if there is no time for constant care of the bushes, then 20 cm of the shoot can be removed. Such pruning is especially important for summer residents who want to significantly increase the amount of harvest on blackberry bushes. Pinching contributes to the formation of new branches, which in the future will give an additional harvest of berries. When pruning shoots, you need to leave only the strongest, and cut off all weak branches so that they do not take all the strength from the bush.

The last pruning is carried out in the autumn period before the onset of winter. All weak and dry shoots are removed. Particular attention should be paid to branches that show signs of disease.On the contrary, it is better to leave the shoots before the beginning of winter, because at the expense of it, in the spring you can see a formed and strong crown.

Blackberry propagation

The question of how to care for a blackberry is not too difficult to understand, unlike the reproduction of this bush. There are many methods of propagation using seeds, seedlings or techniques that, in the initial stages, do not even require pruning the stem of the blackberry. The most popular blackberry propagation method among gardeners is planting a sprouting stem... This method can help to propagate blackberries from just one shrub.

To propagate blackberries, you will need a stem about 3 meters long from a nearby bush. A hole is dug up to a depth of 30 centimeters and sprinkled with humus. The end of the stem is placed in the hole in a semicircle or in a full circle and sprinkled with a little earth. Immediately after that, you need to make the first watering and wait until the water is absorbed into the ground. The rest of the soil layer completely covers the hole.

With this breeding technique, it is important that the stem is buried in early August, and at the end of the autumn period it can be cut off from a nearby shrub. In this case, the length of the sapling should be no more than one meter above the ground... This is the easiest method of propagation, which requires the least amount of effort, and does not require the purchase of additional seedlings.

Conclusion

Blackberries, along with raspberries, are considered the most delicious berries. It can be grown by any summer resident, even without much experience, the main thing is to follow the basic recommendations. The main advantages of this variety of berry bushes are the minimum need for maintenance, high yield, as well as a way to improve the aesthetic appearance of the landscape in the garden area.

Growing blackberries

Blackberries are in many ways similar to their close relative, raspberries. But in our country it is not popular. This berry grows mostly in nature, only a few gardeners bred it on purpose. But recently, blackberries have begun to gain more and more fans.

Choosing a place to plant blackberries

Blackberries respond to spring frosts and low temperatures. The landing site should be chosen without access to cold winds. The best option may be the western and southern parts of the house. For breeding upright varieties, light loams are suitable, and heavy loams for climbing species. The plant feels good in sandy soil. Temporary flooding has a detrimental effect on young shoots. To breed fruitful blackberry bushes in the country, it is undesirable to plant a crop on calcareous soils, since the plants will be deficient in iron and magnesium.

Fresh articles about garden and vegetable garden

We must not forget about the previous culture. Leguminous herbs, beets, carrots, cucumbers, and zucchini are considered favorable for blackberries on a personal plot. The site is prepared for several years for planting, and is left fallow. It is cleared of weeds and pathogens. Six months before planting, in the fall, apply organic and mineral fertilizers to the ground. If the land is saturated with nutrients, then organic matter can be excluded.

Planting blackberries

The entire procedure for planting blackberry shrubs can be divided into several stages in order to subsequently achieve high results during plant survival.

1. Before you start planting the plant, you need to clean the cuttings from the dry crust and put in water for one night.
2. On the garden plot, you must first prepare a place for planting blackberry bushes. The pits should be of the optimal size, but this is not the main thing. Basically, you need to look at the distance between the holes. During growth, shrubs can grow to colossal sizes, so you need to leave a distance between the pits, which will be about 80 cm.This distance is necessary so that the blackberry bushes do not intertwine and interfere with each other. In addition, the passage between the plants will make harvesting easier.
3. It is best to fertilize the soil before planting. The selection of fertilizers is more symbolic, so you can take ordinary humus and potash fertilizing. The humus should be stirred in equal proportions with the soil and introduced into the hole even before the planting of the bushes. Next, you need to add potash fertilizers in the amount of 40 grams. Good feeding can guarantee quick survival of shrubs in a new place.
4. After fertilizing the soil, you can place the cuttings in a hole and bury them with the rest of the earth, which was previously mixed with humus. The ground around the bush is compacted, but it will be possible to water it only after a few days.

For growing on a garden plot, the thornless blackberry is best suited. Of the most popular varieties, one can single out such as agave, abundant, darrow. These varieties are great for courting at their summer cottage. The lack of thorns makes it easier to harvest, and if the plant is no longer cared for, it will not grow as much as other blackberry varieties.

Features of caring for blackberries

Now you know how to plant blackberries, and if you get some seedlings, you can plant them correctly. If a garden blackberry has already been planted in the garden, cultivate and care for it in terms of watering and dressing by analogy with raspberries. In all other respects, the agricultural technology of this berry differs sharply from what gardeners of a temperate climate are used to.

In fact, blackberries are the same raspberries, only more aggressively growing. For this reason, if a blackberry is already growing in some corner of the garden, it is absolutely impossible to plant raspberries next to it. Firstly, these crops have common diseases, and secondly, blackberries will simply "strangle" raspberries underground with their roots, preventing them from growing, even if a small distance remains between the plants on the soil surface.

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If you like the studless blackberry, planting and caring for it will require knowledge and some experience. The cultivation of this culture cannot be called simple. Best of all, those gardeners who have experience in growing grapes will "cope" with the garden hybrid blackberry, since the agricultural technology of these crops is similar.

The scourge of the hybrid thornless blackberry grows beyond hours and the problem quickly arises of where to place them. Blackberries, like raspberries, bear fruit on biennial shoots. Therefore, it is most reasonable to install trellises on both sides of a row and wind fruiting branches on one side, and only young ones growing this year on the other.

The trellis must be installed thoroughly, since the vine, along with the side shoots, will grow impressive in size. And when the harvest begins to ripen on it, its mass will grow many times over. Every two meters of a row, strong supports with a height of 180-200 cm are dug in, between which galvanized wire is pulled at a height of 50, 100 and 170 cm.

In preparation for wintering, the lashes are removed from the trellis, wound into a ring and laid on the ground. From above, they are pressed down with a board and covered with non-woven material.

Caring for blackberries in the spring consists in getting the whips from under the shelters and throwing them on the trellis. Live green leaves should be preserved on the lashes. It is on these overwintered shoots that berries will appear this year.

Hybrid garden blackberry per unit area gives a yield 5 times higher than raspberries.

During the summer, when the plant is blooming and the harvest is ripening, the culture needs watering, weeding and feeding. The plant quickly develops a gigantic vegetative mass and carries out many nutrients from the soil that must be replaced.

When a blackberry has just been planted on the site, spring care for young plantings consists only in abundant watering. Fruiting bushes are fed with urea in the spring.A tablespoon of fertilizer is dissolved in a bucket of water and poured into each well in a bucket of such a solution.

Cold well water should not be used for irrigation and preparation of fertilizer solutions. It is best to install a container on the site for collecting precipitation or heating well water in the sun.

Blackberry pruning

Pruning blackberries is troublesome, but you need to do it regularly. Processing of blackberry bushes with pruning shears is carried out in spring, summer and autumn. Blackberries are divided into erect, which is called kumanika, and creeping - dewberry. Shoots of kumanik reach a height of three meters or even more, it forms many replacement shoots, like raspberries, erect blackberries bear fruit on two-year-old shoots. Most varieties of dewrock do not give root growth, its shoots look like whips with a large number of fruit twigs. In the spring, even before the buds awaken, dry and broken stems are cut off in blackberries, as well as the frozen tops of the shoots to the first healthy bud. Bushes of the first year of growth are subjected to double pruning: to stimulate the growth of lateral shoots in May, the tops of the branches are shortened by 5-7 cm, and in July the tops of those lateral shoots that have reached half a meter are cut off by 7-10 cm, in addition, only 6-8 of the strongest, and the rest must be removed. In mature bushes, in addition to frozen and broken branches, all weak shoots are removed in the spring, leaving only 4-10 strong branches on the bush, the lateral branches are shortened to 20-40 cm so that 8-12 buds remain on them. During the growing season, remove the root shoots that appear in the summer, leaving only those that have grown since spring - they will bear fruit next year. These spring shoots in the fall need to be pruned at a height of 1.7-2 m.In addition, remove all weak branches and, most importantly, cut all the shoots of the second year at the root immediately after they stopped bearing fruit - they will no longer give berries, so in vain the plant does not need to spend food and strength on them.

Blackberry propagation

The process of reproduction of blackberries is carried out in three ways - by seeds, dividing the bush and vegetatively. Almost all blackberry varieties retain the properties of the parent bushes. We must stratify the seeds, soak them in melt or rainwater for several hours and sow them in a greenhouse. We plant seedlings in open ground with the formation of 4 leaves. Reproduction is also possible by apical layers. The method consists in deepening the apex of the shoot into the groove. This method is very simple. The cut takes root in a month. It is better to replant it next year in the spring. Reproduction by cuttings is as follows. We dig out two- or three-year-old roots, cut into cuttings of 6-8 cm. In winter, we store the planting material in wet sand in the basement. We plant in early spring in grooves 20 cm deep. Reproduction is also possible with green cuttings. Towards the middle of summer, we cut off the cuttings with buds, treat them with indolylbutyric acid, and then plant them in small cups with soil. By dividing the bush, the blackberry propagates by dividing the bushes into parts, trying to keep several strong shoots on each unit.

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Blackberry diseases

For abundant fruiting, it is important to monitor the standing of the bushes. Be sure to check the branches regularly for disease. Most often, blackberries are infected with anthracnose. This disease infects the blackberry fruit. It is manifested by the uneven and slow development of the berry. It can be found already at the end of spring.

Leaves and young stems are affected by rust. This disease externally manifests itself as brown spots on the plant and reduces the yield of the bush by more than half.