How to Grow Blackberries: The Complete Guide

Photo Credit
Pixabay
Botanical Name
Rubus fruticosus
Plant Type
Fruit
Sun Exposure
Full Sun
Soil pH
Acidic
Bloom Time
Summer
Flower Color
White
Hardiness Zone
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

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Planting, Growing, and Harvesting Blackberries

Catherine Boeckmann

Blackberries, like raspberries, are very easy to grow. Once this native berry is ripe, get ready for an abundant harvest, picking every couple of days! Here’s how to grow and harvest blackberries in your backyard.

Basically, there are three types of blackberries:

  1. Erect thorny blackberries
  2. Erect thornless blackberries
  3. Trailing thornless blackberries

Erect blackberries are bushes that support themselves, while the trailing blackberries have long canes that must be trellised for support.

All blackberries are perennials; the roots survive year after year. However, the top of the plant above the soil is what we call biennial. This means that the canes grow vegetatively for a year, bear fruit the next year, and then die. However, every year the plant sends up new canes to replace those that died! For a great fruit harvest and to avoid a messy plant, pruning is important. (Learn about proper pruning techniques below.)

Read Next

Planting

When to Plant Blackberries

  • Plant when the canes are dormant, preferably in early spring.
    • Planting may also be done in late fall, however, it should be delayed until early spring in very cold areas as low temperatures could kill some hybrid varieties.
  • Blackberries and their hybrids are all self-fertile, so multiple plants are not needed for fruit production.

Choosing and Preparing a Planting Site

  • Select a site that receives full sun for the best berry yields.
  • Soil needs to be fertile with good drainage. Add organic content to enrich your soil. (Learn more about soil amendments and preparing soil for planting.)
  • Make sure you plant your blackberries far away from wild blackberries, which may carry (plant) diseases that could weaken your own plants.

How to Plant Blackberries

  • For semi-erect cultivars, space plants 5 to 6 feet apart. Space erect cultivars 3 feet apart. Space trailing varieties 5 to 8 feet apart. Space rows about 8 feet apart.
  • Plant shallowly: about one inch deeper than they were grown in the nursery.

Growing

How to Care for Blackberries

  • Mulching is important throughout the season to conserve moisture and suffocate weeds. Keep a thick layer of mulch surrounding plants at all times.
  • Blackberries require plenty of moisture, especially when growing and ripening. Ensure plants receive one inch of water per week and more in hot temperatures.
  • Blackberries benefit from fertilizing in early spring with an all-purpose fertilizer such as 10-10-10, or a 16-16-8. 

Trellis Trailing Blackberries

As mentioned above, trailing blackberries need a trellis or support. Explore a two-wire system, running a top wire at five to six feet with a second line 18 inches below the top wire. After the first year, there will be fruiting floricanes along the wires. Train the new primocanes into a narrow row below the fruiting canes. Directing all canes in one direction may make it simpler.

Pruning

We have provided detailed pruning information below, but do not be scared. The main idea is to simply remove the old canes that already bore fruit and let new ones take their place. 

  • Trailing blackberries: After the fruit harvest period, the old fruiting (floricanes) are removed to the ground. However, unless there is a lot of disease, it’s best to delay removing the old fruiting canes until they have died back considerably. This allows the dying canes to move nutrients back into the crown and roots. After you remove the old fruiting canes, you may train the primocanes up on the wires. Work with one or two canes at a time in a spiral around the trellis wires. Canes from adjacent plants may overlap a little. No pruning of primocanes is necessary.

In areas with low winter temperatures, it’s fine to leave the primocanes on the ground for the winter, where they could be mulched for winter protection. In the spring, after the danger of extreme cold has passed, train the old primocanes (now considered floricanes) up on the wires. Avoid working with the canes in cold weather, as they are more prone to breaking.

  • Erect blackberries produce stiff, shorter canes that come from the crown and from root suckering (often forming a hedgerow).

    Erect blackberries benefit from summer pruning. Remove the top one to two inches of new primocanes when they are four feet tall. This causes the canes to branch, increasing next year’s yields. Plants will require several pruning sessions to tip each cane as it reaches the four-foot height. Primocanes (suckers) that grow outside the hedgerow should be regularly removed.

    In the winter, remove the dead floricanes (old fruiting canes) from the hedgerow. Also, shorten the lateral branches to about 1½ to 2½ feet.

  • If you have primocane-fruiting erect blackberries, which are harvested in late summer/early autumn, cut all canes to the ground in the late winter (after the fall crop). In the summer, when the primocanes are 3½ feet tall, remove the top 6 inches. The primocanes will branch, thereby producing larger yields in the fall.

  • If you have semi-erect blackberries, they are easier to manage on a Double T Trellis. Install four-foot cross arms at the top of a six-foot post. Install a three-foot cross arm about two feet below the top line. String high-tensile wire down the rows, connecting to the cross arms.

    Semi-erect berries need to be pruned in the summer. When the primocanes are five feet tall, remove the top two inches to encourage branching. Several pruning sessions will be required as canes reach the appropriate height. In the winter, remove the dead floricanes (old fruiting canes). Spread the primocanes (new floricanes) out along the trellis. Canes do not need to be shortened. However, they can be if they are difficult to train.

Types

Here are some favorite blackberry varieties to investigate, but be sure to ask about varieties that fit your growing zone.

  • Erect Thornless: ‘Navaho,’ ‘Arapaho’  
  • Erect Thorny: ‘Cherokee,’ ‘Brazos,’ ‘Shawnee,’ and ‘Cheyenne’
  • Semi-erect Thornless: ‘Black Satin’
  • Trailing: Olallie

Harvesting

How to Harvest Blackberries

  • Pick only berries that are fully black. Mature berries are plump yet firm, a deep black color, and pull freely from the plant without a yank. Berries do not ripen after being picked.
  • Once blackberries start to ripen, they must be picked often—every couple of days. 
  • When picking, keep the central plug within the fruit (unlike raspberries).
  • Harvest during the cooler parts of the day. Once picked, place berries in the shade and refrigerate as soon as possible.

How to Store Blackberries

  • Blackberries are highly perishable and will only last a few days once harvested, even with refrigeration. 
  • Although fresh fruit is always best, blackberries can be stored by canning, preserving, or freezing. Techniques used for freezing blueberries can also be used on blackberries.
Gardening Products

Wit and Wisdom

Blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries are very high in ellagic acid, which is an antioxidant that acts as a scavenger, helping to make potential cancer-causing chemicals inactive. Ellagic acid reduces the genetic damage caused by carcinogens like tobacco smoke and air pollution. Blackberries also contain other antioxidants that can help lower cholesterol and ward off cardiovascular disease.

Pests/Diseases

  • Raspberry Borers
  • Fruit Worms
  • Gray Mold
  • Viruses
    • If your plant is suffering from the blackberry disease known as Raspberry Bushy Dwarf virus, the leaves will have some bright yellow on them, and the leaves of the fruiting vines may have a bleached look in the summer. The disease known as Blackberry Calico will cause faint yellow blotches on the leaves of the plant.

Recipes

Blackberry Cobbler
Blackberry Soup
Refrigerator or Freezer Blackberry Jam
Fruit
About The Author

Catherine Boeckmann

Catherine Boeckmann loves nature, stargazing, and gardening so it’s not surprising that she and The Old Farmer’s found each other. She leads digital content for the website, and is also a certified master gardener in the state of Indiana. Read More from Catherine Boeckmann
 

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Comments

Mary (not verified)

1 year 6 months ago

Checking on my blackberries that are about three years old, I found more than a few canes have tipped over and grown into the ground. Should I cut the end off and remove it from the ground or leave it? Last year as not a good year for our berries and this year the long stems seem bare of leaves on the middle of the stem but leafy on the ends and at the ground. Any Information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Mary, your plants that tip over and seem to ‘grow into the ground’ are merely doing what God intended them to do which is go forth and multiply. This process of tipping is much like that of strawberry plants sending out runners and starting new plants. Once the tip has ‘stuck to the ground’ it has essentially rooted a new plant. You can simply cut the original cane off about 1’ from the ground and carefully dig up the new area and transplant it somewhere else or place in a pot to cultivate and give to a friend. If you simply want the original cane back up to train just cut it off where it has attached to the ground - no harm done.

Randal P Andersen (not verified)

2 years 2 months ago

We have thorn less blackberries and while some turn black a lot have red on them and never turn ripe. This has been going on for years, new canes come up every year and I wonder if the type I have just need to be replaced.

Cindy (not verified)

2 years 4 months ago

When we've harvested our thornless blackberries, the "plug" or end-stem remains in the berry. Does that mean it's not quite ripe yet, too hot, not enough water? When I cook those berries, the white "plug" gets hard and they need to be fished out of the cooked berries.

No, that is simply a quirk of blackberries! Blackberries retain the core when they come off the stem, whereas raspberries do not. This is one easy way to tell the berries apart at a glance!

Sierra Morgan (not verified)

2 years 4 months ago

We have a blackberry patch behind our house. The neighborhood deer herd seems to love them and have decided they wanted a front yard patch. The deer manage the backyard patch and now I know how to better manage the front. The birds have also contributed to the front yard patch by dropping seeds in my yew trees. Our four legged and winged farmhands also manage our strawberry patches.

The irony, my husband and I don't like blackberries. We do like strawberries.

Blackberries will certainly grow from seeds dropped by birds. The plants send out new suckers from their roots that can pop up anywhere.  Some people may like this if they have a homestead; for others, they won’t want the blackberries to spread everywhere and they will need to prune and pull those suckers to keep the blackberries in control (and direct the energy to bigger fruit).

Debbie Huffman (not verified)

3 years 5 months ago

How do I determine if my blackberry plant is trailing or erect? Primocane-fruiting or semi-erect? I got it as a gift last year. It is doing well with berries and has a really tall cane.

For those who are trying to identify their blackberry type:

  1. Most nurseries are selling the “erect” type. It has short sturdy canes that support themselves. The erect type is thornier and you can’t grab the stem. The stem is angular, not round. They are fairly winter-hearty with bigger fruit.
  2. There is also a trailing type which has slender stems and prickles; you could still grab the branch. The stem is also round. Each leaf grows on alternate sides of the stem, and is made up of 3 leaflets (i.e. 3 smaller leaves). The leaves are roughly triangular shaped, are dark green on the top and bottom, and fall off during fall and winter. The trailing type isn’t very dense and will spread out over other plants; it’s best grown with a trellis.

Note: There are also thornless varieties!

Julia Holcomb (not verified)

3 years 6 months ago

i have several wild bushes in a flower bed. does any one know if these can sucessfully be dug up and potted foir resale? I would like to share these delish berries with fewer being seen.