There are few tastes that capture late summer quite like a ripe blackberry.
For many of us, blackberries belong to hedgerows: fingers stained purple after an afternoon’s picking, berries eaten before they ever reach the kitchen and the inevitable discovery that the best fruit is always just beyond comfortable reach.
But blackberries deserve a place in the garden too.
Cultivated varieties can produce generous crops of large, juicy fruit, and many modern blackberries are thornless, making picking considerably easier than wrestling with a bramble on a country lane.
Give one a sunny spot, something sturdy to grow against and a little attention each year, and a blackberry can become one of the best long-term investments you make in your fruit garden.
Blackberries have been part of our landscape for centuries
The wild blackberry, or bramble, is one of the most familiar plants in the British countryside.
Its arching stems scramble through hedges, woodland edges and waste ground, flowering through summer before producing the dark fruits that mark the approach of autumn.
Those flowers are valuable in their own right, providing nectar and pollen for a range of insects. Later, the berries become food for birds and mammals as well as people.
Garden blackberries share much of this character, but have been selected for qualities such as larger fruit, reliable cropping, manageable growth and, in many cases, thornless stems.
The result is a fruit that still feels wonderfully connected to the hedgerow but is rather easier to live with in a garden.
How blackberry plants grow
Understanding how a blackberry grows makes looking after one much simpler.
Most traditional blackberries produce long canes that live for two years.
In their first year, new canes grow from the base of the plant. These are sometimes called primocanes.
The following year, those same canes produce flowers and fruit. Once they’ve finished fruiting, they die and can be removed.
Meanwhile, another generation of fresh canes is already growing to provide the following year’s crop.
So rather than thinking of pruning as complicated, remember one simple rule:
Old canes out, new canes stay.
There are also newer primocane-fruiting varieties that can produce fruit on the current year’s growth, so always check the pruning requirements of the particular blackberry you’re growing.
Where should you plant blackberries?
Blackberries are accommodating plants, but they’ll usually crop best in a sunny position.
They can tolerate some shade, although fruit may ripen more slowly and crops may be lighter. A sheltered position can also help protect long canes from strong winds.
The soil should be reasonably fertile, moisture-retentive but well drained.
Before planting, remove perennial weeds carefully and improve poor soil with well-rotted organic matter where needed. There’s no need to create an excessively rich planting hole; improving the wider area encourages roots to spread out into the surrounding ground.
Think about support before you plant too.
Most blackberries are much easier to manage when trained along horizontal wires attached to sturdy posts or against a suitable wall or fence. Giving the canes somewhere to go from the beginning prevents the plant turning into the sort of bramble thicket you were trying to avoid.
Give them enough room
Don’t underestimate how much space a vigorous blackberry can occupy.
Many varieties produce canes several metres long, so check the eventual size of your chosen plant and follow the recommended spacing on its label.
For a larger garden, a row of blackberries trained along wires can form a productive boundary in its own right.
In a smaller garden, look for compact or less vigorous varieties. Some can also be grown successfully in a large container, provided they have sufficient compost, regular water and suitable support.
Choosing a plant that fits the available space will save an enormous amount of pruning later.
When to plant blackberries
Autumn and early winter are excellent times to plant blackberries, provided the ground isn’t frozen or waterlogged.
Bare-root plants are usually available during the dormant season and can be an economical way of establishing a fruit garden.
Container-grown blackberries can be planted at other times of year, but avoid periods when the ground is frozen, waterlogged or exceptionally dry. If planting during warmer weather, you’ll need to pay particularly close attention to watering while the plant establishes.
Dig a hole wide enough to accommodate the roots comfortably and plant at approximately the same depth the plant was growing previously.
Firm the soil gently around the roots and water thoroughly.
Mulch after planting
Once your blackberry is in the ground, apply a layer of organic mulch around the base.
Garden compost or well-rotted organic matter can help conserve soil moisture, suppress competing weeds and gradually improve the soil.
Keep the mulch clear of the stems themselves rather than piling it directly against the crown.
Young plants need regular watering while they establish. Even mature plants can benefit from additional water during prolonged dry spells, particularly as the fruits are swelling and ripening.
Consistent moisture helps support healthy growth and a good crop.
How to support blackberry canes
A simple post-and-wire system is one of the easiest ways to keep a blackberry under control.
Stretch several horizontal wires between sturdy posts and tie the canes loosely to them using soft garden ties.
Training the plant has several advantages. It keeps fruiting canes off the ground, makes berries easier to find and pick and allows you to separate old fruiting growth from the new canes that will produce next year’s crop.
Some gardeners train fruiting canes to one side and new growth to the other. When the old canes are removed after harvest, the new ones can simply be tied into their place.
It’s a wonderfully straightforward system once established.
How to prune blackberries
For most summer-fruiting blackberries, pruning begins after the harvest.
Identify the canes that have just carried fruit and cut them down to the base. They won’t fruit again.
Take care not to remove the fresh new canes that have grown during the same summer – these are your potential fruiting canes for next year.
Tie the strongest new canes onto their supports, spacing them out so that light and air can move through the plant.
Remove weak, damaged or badly positioned growth if necessary.
If you’re growing a primocane-fruiting blackberry, the pruning method may be different, so follow the instructions for that particular variety.
Once you understand which canes are which, blackberry pruning becomes one of the simpler jobs in the fruit garden.
Choosing a blackberry variety
There’s far more choice than you might expect.
If you’ve ever returned from blackberry picking with scratched arms and snagged clothing, a thornless blackberry may seem like one of horticulture’s better ideas.
‘Loch Ness’ is a popular thornless variety, valued for its large fruit and productive habit. ‘Oregon Thornless’ is another distinctive choice, with deeply divided foliage as well as thornless stems.
There are also more compact blackberries for gardeners who don’t have room for several metres of vigorous cane.
When choosing a variety, look beyond berry size. Consider the eventual size of the plant, whether it has thorns, its cropping season and whether its growth habit suits the way you want to train it.
If space allows, growing varieties that ripen at slightly different times can extend the picking season.
Don’t forget the flowers
It’s easy to think only about the berries, but blackberry flowers are an important part of the garden too.
The simple white or pink-tinged flowers appear before the fruit and are visited by bees and other pollinating insects.
This makes a blackberry a useful addition to a wildlife-friendly edible garden: a plant that provides something for us while also offering resources to other species.
Avoid using insecticides around plants in flower and allow pollinators to do the work for you.
When are blackberries ready to pick?
Blackberries need to be properly ripe before picking.
The fruit should have changed completely from red to a deep purple-black and should come away from the plant with relatively little resistance.
If you have to tug, give it a little longer.
Ripe blackberries are soft and don’t keep indefinitely, so pick regularly during the cropping season. Harvest on a dry day if you can and handle the fruit gently.
And, inevitably, eat a few while you’re doing it.
There are some gardening traditions that don’t need improving.
What to do with a glut of blackberries
A productive plant can provide more berries than you expect.
Fresh blackberries are wonderful with yoghurt, porridge or simply eaten as they are, but they’re equally at home in crumbles, pies and autumn puddings.
Blackberry and apple is a particularly good partnership, bringing together two fruits that reach their best at roughly the same time.
Berries can also be turned into jams, jellies, compotes and sauces.
If the harvest gets ahead of you, freezing is one of the simplest ways to preserve it. Spread the berries on a tray so they freeze separately before transferring them to a container or freezer bag.
Then, in the depths of winter, you can bring a little of late summer back into the kitchen.
Watch for birds – and share if you can
Gardeners aren’t the only ones waiting for blackberries to ripen.
Birds can quickly discover a productive plant and may take an enthusiastic interest in the crop.
In many gardens there will be enough fruit to share. If you do need to protect part of the harvest, use wildlife-safe netting carefully and make sure it’s securely fixed so that birds and other animals cannot become trapped.
Alternatively, accept that a few berries are the price of growing food in a living garden.
A fruit worth making room for
Blackberries aren’t the neatest plants in the fruit garden.
Their canes need training, their growth needs managing and even thornless varieties retain something of the vigorous spirit of their wild relatives.
But that’s part of their charm.
Plant one this autumn and the first season may be largely about roots, shoots and establishing a framework. Give it another year and those canes begin to earn their keep.
Then comes a warm day towards the end of summer when you notice the first berries have turned from red to black.
You pick one.
It’s warm from the sun, perfectly ripe and hasn’t travelled any further than the few steps between the plant and your hand.
At that moment, finding space for a blackberry in the garden seems like a very good decision indeed.
Further Reading: My Garden Journal & Notes
