Blackberries & Dewberries

Blackberries and dewberries (also known as trailing blackberries) are easy to grow. In fact, you will probably have more trouble controlling them than getting them to grow. When I was growing up, you could find dewberries growing wild all along the dirt road banks. Dewberries are thorny and tend to grow across the ground more like a vine. Blackberries grow on canes, and they can be thorny, but some excellent thornless varieties are perfect for the home garden. We will snack on a few in season, but blackberries make an excellent jelly that you can enjoy all year long.

You can simply plant your blackberries, keep the weeds down and throw a little 10-10-10 on them from time to time. They will produce like that, but if you really want to maximize your success, you need to understand a little of the biology. Blackberries have perennial roots, which means they will last for many years. The plants above ground are biennial, meaning they last 2 years. The new growth canes are called primocanes, and they are bright green. The second-year canes are called floricanes. The floricanes produce the fruit, and then they die. I called it a fruit because the blackberry is not actually a berry by the technical definition. It is actually an aggregate fruit, with each section being a fruit (called a drupelet).

Planting Your Blackberries

Maintaining Your Blackberries