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2006 Blackberries

Fifteen years ago (or more) I put in a blackberry patch. One row of plants. I put black plastic at the edges of the patch, and some bark chips on that to keep it from expanding. It was surrounded by lawn. But any self-respecting blackberry bush can push up new shoots through plastic, wood chips or not. Piece of cake. And mowing? Well, those thorny canes leaned out, keeping me away. Every year the row widened. And widened. This year it got to be 10 feet wide and I recently declared war. We couldn't get into the middle of the patch without the Rescue Squad waiting to give us transfusions. But now I'm getting it under control.

Here's how I'm winning the war. I dedicate half an hour EVERY day (unless raining) to working on the patch. I put on a canvas jacket, heavy jeans, and don heavy leather work gloves - the kind you use for moving firewood or cement blocks. I put on a baseball cap to protect my eyes, face and balding pate. Using my Felco by-pass pruners, I start at the edges, cutting everything right to the ground. Young plants I pull out by the roots, along with the bush honeysuckles that were planted by the birds.

The patch, which was 50 feet long and 10 feet wide when I started, had not been cleaned up properly in a number of years. I've been narrowing the patch on each side by about 3 feet.

Blackberries produce on canes (thorny stems) that grew the year before. After a cane produces, it dies. So at this time of year it is easy to see what produced this year, and what will produce next year. I can tell by the color of the canes - this year's canes, the ones that gave us berries, are brown to gray; next year's canes are red, reddish-green, or green. I cut the spent canes off just above the ground, and take them away. Older canes have fallen over, creating a danger zone for pickers in shorts. But those canes pull easily, or can be collected with a short-tined garden rake. When I'm done I'll be able to walk right into the patch - safely.

I've also learned how to contain the patch. I have already installed a wire trellising system on one side of the patch, and will do so on the other when I finish the job of cutting back the plants. The system keeps the canes from leaning out, so I really WILL be able to mow right up to the edge of the plants without being sliced up.

The Gripple Trellising system, which I got from Gardener's Supply (1-800-427-3363 or www.gardeners.com ), is, as one Vermonter I know likes to say, "Slick as a bean." It consists of a plastic "wire" and self-tightening fasteners. I installed it by looping the wire around a post and through a fastener, and then walked to the other end of the patch, paying out wire. I looped around the post and through another fastener. A tug on the free end of the wire, and it tightened right up. I installed two strands, one near the top of the poles, and one halfway up.

I used 6-ft metal fence posts, and drove them about 2 feet in the ground so that I could tighten the wire to bass guitar standards - tight enough to play. You could also use cedar posts with cross arms made of two-by-fours, which is more the traditional way of trellising. But the great part is, the plastic wire is easy to handle and to tighten. Tightening steel wire, for most mere mortals, is almost impossible. But this stuff is easy.

When the patch is all cleaned up I'll spread some Pro-Gro organic fertilizer on top of the soil to replace soil minerals that have been used up over the years. It's a slow release fertilizer that won't wash away - the way most chemical fertilizers would.

Blackberries - or weeds - usually win out over gardeners because they are out there, doing their job every day: growing. We gardeners are usuallhy determined, but too easily distracted. To beat the plants, we've got to be ruthless - and at it every day. And when it comes to blackberries, I've got to stop thinking about how many fewer berries I'll have next year. I know I won't starve, no matter how many I cut down or pull out.

Henry Homeyer is the VT/NH associate editor of "People, Places and Plants" magazine. Write him at gardening.guy@valley.net or P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, N.H. 03746.