Blackberries! Ah!

[jinman]

We used to have wild blackberry patches over several acres of the property where I grew up. We picked and sold blackberries in the summer by the gallon and made lots of money back in the late 50s and early 60s. After my dad passed away and I inherited the land, I took my rotary cutter and cut down many of the thickets. The vines were 10' high in places and I just backed in the cutter over and over, chopping down the thorny vines. Some of them sprouted back and others didn't.

If I am not terribly mistaken, 1st year growth does not produce berries. You have to let the vines come back and grow the 2nd year and beyond to have good berry production.

One of the things I remember most was all the fox trails through our thickets. At times we'd be picking berries and a little fox would poke his head out of his hole and bark at us. We also caught some of the longest/prettiest green snakes in those vines. I don't think they ate berries, but they raided bird nests and perhaps also ate insects. We also had some monster paper wasp nests in there. It seems the prettiest berries were always right near the wasp nests.

 

[TripleR]

The wife and me definitely like Blackberries and plan on keeping a strip at the edge of the property. We had several 5 gallon buckets full just using that small strip. They get the biggest I've ever seen around here and are super sweet. We never even picked a berry from the two patches I'm getting rid of now so it's no loss with those.

On the other hand it has given us cover from our crazy neighbor, but I'll be planting trees in the spring to block them. We planted some Autumn Blaze maples behind the house to give us privacy from the hill. We live next to a small river and at the bottom of the hill with houses on top. It's kind of like an amphitheater and everyone can see what's going on. We plan on getting some pines as well to get more privacy, after living in town for the last several years and now in the country, I'm desperately seeking some.

I sure know what you mean, we are lucky not to have any close neighbors and are surrounded on three sides by woods, but we are 260 feet off of a main country road and elevated, so we have no privacy in the front.

Most of our blackberries are on another farm where my son lives in areas we manage for wildlife and recreation. Our biggest problem seems to be Autumn Olives right now and increasing MultiFlora Rose. We have Kudzu a couple of miles from us, but is not a problem yet.

 

[TripleR]

We used to have wild blackberry patches over several acres of the property where I grew up. We picked and sold blackberries in the summer by the gallon and made lots of money back in the late 50s and early 60s. After my dad passed away and I inherited the land, I took my rotary cutter and cut down many of the thickets. The vines were 10' high in places and I just backed in the cutter over and over, chopping down the thorny vines. Some of them sprouted back and others didn't.

If I am not terribly mistaken, 1st year growth does not produce berries. You have to let the vines come back and grow the 2nd year and beyond to have good berry production.

One of the things I remember most was all the fox trails through our thickets. At times we'd be picking berries and a little fox would poke his head out of his hole and bark at us. We also caught some of the longest/prettiest green snakes in those vines. I don't think they ate berries, but they raided bird nests and perhaps also ate insects. We also had some monster paper wasp nests in there. It seems the prettiest berries were always right near the wasp nests.

Yep, no berries on ours until the second year and rabbits love to hide in blackberry patches too. I don't hunt them anymore, but did growing up.

 

[Kaw]

we have no issues with blackberry other than the lack of them.. well we have a few but nothing like you guys are describing. we have multifloral rose issues.. and it gets big. its nasty and good for nothing.. get on it now before the bush's get too big.

 

[Branchchipper]

The scourge of the Pacific Northwest, as described well by several writers here, is an invasive species, the Himalayan Blackberry, Rubus armeniacus.

Patches of this plant provide no erosion protection (despite dense appearance) and provide little cover for wildlife. It is, to be blunt, a horrible plant to have on your land (speaking from experience, unfortunately).

Heavy cutting, followed by targeted attack on new chutes (by herbicide or goats) over several years, seems to work well. Alternately, repeated cutting alone does "wear it down" but will do the same to you, unless you have unlimited time and 2-cycle fuel!

I have a friend who goes after them with a 48" flail attachment on a mini-excavator boom. Now THAT is cool!

 

[Sasquatch4100]

I got them all dozed up. Can't burn today as they have ban in place at the moment. There's 4 big piles and one small one. The big piles are about 8-10 feet tall and wrapped like a ball of twine.The whole patch covered half that strip of land on the right and followed the drive almost to that van. Took me bout 5 hours to finish it all. Amazing little tractor. Little scrapes on me and the tractor, but we both fared well despite the cold and thorns. Found lots of mice. The local cats are going to have a field day.:thumbsup:

 

[tcreeley]

Here in central Maine they get hit with a virus and rarely produce berries. They have a tough time with the winters and are never a problem.

 

[Pete Judd]

TC, can you send me some of that virus? I would love to spread it around, and I think that there would be a lot of other takers as well.

 

[bigballer]

nasty buggers.. i spent many hours on my tractor attacking these with a brushog, along fencelines and around trees i used a hedgetrimmer.. some of the vines reached 30-40' up into the cedars. one must respect the noxious weed as they seem to get the last laugh more often then not.. in my case i just keep after them and eventually they end up giving in. i still have a few areas were they invade, in others, i have created hedges and am able to harvest the fruit, in fact i have some wine that's almost ready to bottle from this years harvest..

 

[Sasquatch4100]

I was able to burn 4 piles before they instituted a burn ban for some reason. From Dec 16 till Feb 28? SHeesh and we're going into the rainy part of the season too. There's a call in hotline that updates you of the status of being able to burn and I was shocked. I was planning on buying one of those fire starter logs to help light the last pile off too.