The Blackberries

I have planted a total of 5 blackberry crowns in my garden. This is the 3rd year of growing. Four of the plants are triple crown blackberry and some kind of thorned trailing breed.

I got a good amount of berries last year, but nothing substantial. My expectation is that the upcoming 2011 harvest will be good, definitely better the previous. Starting this year, I pruned the canes using a method I read about called "tipping". It's nothing overly complicated, you simply cut the tips off of the blackberry canes when they reach a fairly desirable height for easy harvest, I choose roughly 5 feet before pruning. The plant results in shooting out the lateral canes at a much faster growth rate. The plant focuses it's energy on the side shoots, and not upwards growth. The single thorned trailing breed seems to be a less desirable variety of blackberry plant, I don't really know what to do with the damn thing. I just keep wrapping it over some wires on a trellis I built for the blackberry bush row.

In the Ohio weather and ease of growing, I would go straight to the triple crown blackberries and not waste time with a more labor intensive breed such as the trailing varities.

Information on "tipping":
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1431.html