Blackberries and blueberries.

so lucky said:

One of my mom's favorite things to make for my dad was blackberry dumplings. She made them for me, too. Eating them while still hot was like sinking into heaven. She would strain the juice from the berries to get rid of the seeds, and drop home made dumplings into the boiling sweetened juice. You can probably imagine how good this is, served with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. Oh my!

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Emerald said:

so lucky said:

One of my mom's favorite things to make for my dad was blackberry dumplings. She made them for me, too. Eating them while still hot was like sinking into heaven. She would strain the juice from the berries to get rid of the seeds, and drop home made dumplings into the boiling sweetened juice. You can probably imagine how good this is, served with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. Oh my!

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I have way more red raspberries than anything else and now I want to try this!! it sounds yummy!

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sleuth said:

I built 3 raised beds this spring, one each for blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries. Of the blackberries & raspberries, I can't remember which were thornless.

In the 6'x6' blackberry bed I planted 4 canes. Only 2 have survived and they are not doing all that well. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the amount of sunlight because they are partially shaded. I'm thinking of asking the neighbor if I can trim a couple branches (I planted them near the property line.)

In the 6'x5' raspberry bed, I planted 4 canes. All 4 canes survived and now I have 20+ raspberry plants.

In the 3'x6' blueberry bed, I planted 2 pink lemonade blueberry plants. They were small when they started and they grew some, but I wouldn't call them thriving. No berries this year at all.

We did not pick any berries this year, preferring to allow them to seed. The birds did enjoy them though.

I figure the raised bed keep the patch manageable, as I mow around all the beds weekly.

Is there anything I need to do to prep them for winter?

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~gd said:

Though blackberries and blueberry sound simple the fact is there are hundreds of natural hybrids and sometimes experts can not tell them apart In blacks there ate the trailing. semi-erect. and the erect[all can be trained to grow on wire. the trailers tend to suffer more from cold winters when up on wires but they don't need the sun like other types. In short it is hard to give any advice without knowing what you have. The same for blueberries. The fact that both will thrive in the willd is good. but did you get your plants locally or were they shipped in to you? btw most blue berries do better with a pollen parent of a different cultivar. Sorry thatIcan not be of more help.~gd

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plantfreek said:

We grow 11 varieties of fruit here in south central Indiana, as organically as we can. Our raspberries and blackberries spread all over the place. You will have to learn which are the fruiting canes & which to pull if you don't already.
I'm very up set right now and found this forum to ask a question.
After 20+ yrs of growing tame blackberries very successfully-70+ gallons a year-we now have fruit fly worms in them. THey are disgusting. What can I do? I read where someone soaked theirs for 12 hours in salt water then switched out water and did it again for 12 hrs. Isn't that a bit long for delicate fruit? Any other ideas? I've washed them twice, saw a few in bottom of bucket and washed again. Thought I got them all but I made a canner full of pie filling last night and there they were. UGH.

ALso, how do I rid my bushes of them as organically as possible> Can I treat now while berries are ripening by picking and throwing away all ripe berries? I can give them to neighbor w/chickens. I need help.
Thanks in advance
Plantfreek in INdiana

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