Growing Blackberries Near St. Petersburg

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

How we tamed blackberries near St. Petersburg

For the first time I came across a blackberry when I was vacationing with my parents at a tourist center near Kaliningrad. In general, this was a very interesting place from the point of view of gardeners, since the camp site was located on the site of former gardens that had already turned into a forest. They had to climb huge trees for cherries, the undergrowth consisted of bushes of various types of currants, and all the slopes of the roads were filled with blackberries. She was very prickly, small, but tasty.

The next meeting happened much later, when in my friend's garden I saw huge, up to three meters high thickets, striking in their power and amazingly beautiful foliage. As for the harvest, it was harvested on this plantation in buckets, and even at a time when there were no other berries in the garden.

Of course, I asked to pick out a piece of this miracle for me, which was done.

I can't say that everything worked out for me right away. I had to replant the plant twice until they found a place where he really liked. Why the originally proposed plots did not like the blackberries - I do not know. Moreover, the territory where it is now rampant is at a distance from the place where they tried to tame it and where the plants in July could be mowed without noticing, only a dozen meters along the same fence.

The planting pits (at a distance of about a meter from each other) were well filled with humus, planted two seedlings per hole, then, after watering, the entire area around the plants was covered with manure. And that's all. In the future, like under all berry bushes, I began to add organic matter every year, and this is where the care of this crop in the summer is over.

In spring, blackberries bloom late, moving away from frost, and at this time they are incredibly good - all the ends of the shoots are crowned with bouquets of white large flowers.

In the summer, there is an active growth of replacement shoots and crop maturation. Our blackberry bushes are powerful, the shoots grow more than three meters high, their top droops, the leaves are large and beautiful.

And in August, the berries begin to ripen. They are large, sweet, tasty, and at this time for everyone living in the country, including the dog, the morning begins with a visit to the blackberry thickets, and no one is afraid that the bushes are thorny. Moreover, the bunches of berries hang at the ends of the branches.

The berries do not ripen at the same time, so the harvest goes until the frost. I freeze berries that were not eaten directly from the bush. Blackberry jam turns out to be watery - the berry is very juicy.

In the fall, I cut off the fruit-bearing shoots to the ground, and I try to press the annuals to the ground and press them down with some kind of log or board, since this shrub winters well only under the snow, as, incidentally, do modern large-fruited varieties of raspberries. I will say that this is not an easy task, the stems are thick, with sparse but sharp thorns, but flexible enough, and they break less often than in raspberries, in addition, some of them lie down during the growth process, and in winter they find themselves under the snow …

Without shelter under the snow, blackberries freeze, although in the garden from which my beauty was obtained, they do not hide it. But even if last year's shoots freeze, as happened in the winter of 2002-2003, then, naturally, the shrub is completely restored in a year.

Now about the grade. I assume this question, but, unfortunately, I cannot say anything about it. I only know that at one time the seedlings from which my bushes came were brought from Canada. But I am not one of those gardeners who do not even want to look at a plant without a name, on the contrary, I will definitely beg for a stalk of any "nameless" bush or tree if I like its garden qualities. In addition, in my opinion, exchange with other gardeners is perhaps the only reliable way in our conditions to get a worthy plant into your garden.

Now a few more words about the choice of location. Contrary to the tradition of planting shrubs along the fence, this is not the best option for such blackberries. After all, her shoots are long, they droop under the weight of the harvest, and some of your berries will be with your neighbors. Therefore, plant the blackberries so that you can easily approach them from all sides, do not chop off and calmly harvest. By the way, this blackberry makes an excellent screen that can cover even a fairly large object. Let me remind you once again that the plant is very beautiful both in flowering and fruiting, and throughout the summer, because flowers, fruits and leaves are very decorative.

As for the undergrowth, then, of course, it appears, but if you mow your site, then it is easy to destroy it when mowing. This, by the way, is another disadvantage when planting near the fence - it is more difficult to cope with the undergrowth there.

So do not be afraid of thorns, which, by the way, are much less unpleasant than raspberries or, moreover, rose hips, and bring the blackberries to your garden.