Blackberry Removal

[Handloader109]

goats. they love them. That and roses....

 

[Torvy]

I figure when life hands you blackberries, you make jam...or something. You may not get rich, but market it right and people in cities will pay well...just make sure to label it artisanal or at least wild, maybe free-range.

Blackberries should be able to be trained to a trellis. Ultimately, it may prove easier to bend with the wind than to run against it. Of course if that doesn't work, cut it low and often. Essentially, you will starve the roots. The battle will likely never end, bit it will get easier. I wish the thorny weeds on my land had the upside of berries.

 

[Midniteoyl]

just make sure to label it artisanal or at least wild,

Organic, non-GMO, all natural, wild grown, gluten free berries.

 

[Torvy]

See, but he already sprayed them so the organic police would sue. The opposite of organic is inorganic. Inorganic blackberries would be like those glass grapes from the 70s. All fruit is organic....sorry, just a pet peeve. I hate the term organic when what it really means is "grown without 'store-bought' chemicals.". If that is important to people, fine, but organic already had a meaning. Come up with a better word.

 

[Cougsfan]

See, but he already sprayed them so the organic police would sue. The opposite of organic is inorganic. Inorganic blackberries would be like those glass grapes from the 70s. All fruit is organic....sorry, just a pet peeve. I hate the term organic when what it really means is "grown without 'store-bought' chemicals.". If that is important to people, fine, but organic already had a meaning. Come up with a better word.

You will never make it as a marketing person, Torvy. You make too much sense.

 

[mark in portugal]

"Organic" farming allows store bought chemicals, you just have to use "organic" certified ones.

Like neem pesticide, made by stripping a slow growing tropical tree of its leaves, instead of nicotinoid made completely artificially, which will therefore kill bees.
Neem kills bees too, but it kills them organically, so that's ok.

I did actually use the stuff on my fruit and it works ok, but short shelf life once opened and extreme high price put me off.

 

[bcp]

Aren't crude oil and snake venoim organic, too?

Bruce

 

[goeduck]

I have cleared about 15 acres of Himalayan Blackberry, and some Evergreen. Nasty things, mostly the Himalayan. These are not trellising berries people from other areas think of. These are monsters. Canes nearly 2 inch at the base. Able to grow up into trees 2 stories high. Able to produce shoots reaching 30 feet in one year, tip-rooting where they hit the ground.

I am able to get them under control in the open areas where I can mow. I have not been able to get them under control along fences or around trees.

Crossbow in the fall (not the spring) when the berries are taking nutrients down to the root-balls helps.

Washington and Oregon have California to blame for these beasts. Too bad the guy did not quit after the Russet Potato.

The Strange, Twisted Story Behind Seattle's Blackberries

Those tangled brambles are everywhere in the city, the legacy of an eccentric named Luther Burbank whose breeding experiments with crops can still be found on many American dinner plates.

www.npr.org

 

[mark in portugal]

Aren't crude oil and snake venoim organic, too?

Bruce

Absolutely; asbestos, mercury, and uranium are completely natural too.

Back on topic for a moment.
It's easy to eliminate the blackberries if you also want to kill everything around them. Plow it, spray it, mow it.

But if you want to keep the trees or shrubs that they're strangling, then it's a LOT harder.
I have a fruit orchard, that's fairly easy to keep clear with periodic mowing + strimming. But out in a back field I have some fruit trees in the gullies and berms that get a lot less attention, and those are really tough.

I cut them at the base and pull them out with heavy leather welding gloves from time to time.
If possible, the root ball is just a few inches under a a quick hit with a digging hoe will extract it.

That fruit is all "organic", that is I don't spray or fertilize it.
Mostly that results in extra protein content (aka, bugs + worms).

 

[Sonny580]

Round-up and mow will take care of them in a flash! ---got nasty stuff around here too and blackberries + raspberries, mulberry seedlings, etc. --- old Roundup did the trick along with mowing.
Had a neighbor hired a small dozer with a root rake on it and cleaned his up. now he just spot sprays with Round-up.