We are starting off with a good morning here in Hewitt TX, and we hope your day is awesome. We had a rain free day yesterday and they're suggesting that we're going to have rain this afternoon or tonight, which is going to make the backyard wet even again and no mowing.
Today we want to talk about how we harvest blackberries here at the Ford homestead. We have 3 BlackBerry beds, and each presents us with several blackberries each year. If you're going to have blackberries in your garden or yard, you ought to talk to somebody who's had blackberries for several years who knows how to handle them, and how to plant them, and how to harvest them.
One of the first things you should learn is they need to be planted in a place where you can access both sides of the blackberries, in other words don't plant them up against the fence against a building, because you still can't get to the other side to pick the berries.
I typically make my BlackBerry bed 3 feet wide and anywhere from 10 to 20 feet long. Plant your blackberries in the center of the bed all the way down through the bed, the plants will expand as time goes by.
It has been my experience that the vine that had blackberries on it this year will not produce blackberries next year, so you might as well cut back those that had produced berries this year. All the new growth should have berries on it next year.
When the berry beds have been there for a couple years, they will start growing both inside and outside the beds, you may find the new growth as much as 6-8 feet away from the Berry bed. If you want, you can dig up the new growth and plant them elsewhere or give them to a friend.
It has been my experience that the thornless berries that I have purchased seemed to be smaller in size than the blackberries that have regular thorns on them.
When harvesting the blackberries you will say ouch a bunch of times, you will get stickers in your hands and arms, you will likely have bloody arms from the cuts and scrapes when you get done picking the blackberries. It is not something that everybody can do.
Thanks for reading.
New topic: yesterday as I was leaving the house I observed a small hawk in the neighbor's yard. It was eating something so I stopped my car, rolled the window down, and tried to get a photograph which I will post here for you. Later in the afternoon as my wife and I were sitting outside enjoying happy hour, we saw a big old hawk land in the neighbor's yard. I grabbed my camera to get a picture and about that time a car drove by and scared the hawk away, so there was no picture of the hawk.
Another photo which I will share: the photo is of a blooming lily. When I looked at it I thought it looked like it was shaped somewhat like a heart, so I found it interesting and posted it here.
Let's see what might happen today; I might go over to the nursery to see about some dirt and some weed killer, other than that not much going on here at the Ford Homestead. I will stop for now, we hope you have a good day and be safe in all we do.
Black berry lecturer.
Don the Ford
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