Saturday, April 30, 2011

The Blackberry Saga Continues....

Last night while at Home Depot picking up some more river rock for my aquaponics gardening project, I noticed some blackberry bush transplants in 1 gallon containers and couldn't resist picking up a couple.

My two previous attempts with the smaller blackberry transplants didn't work out well (they all died), but these 1 gallon transplants look much more promising. They are farther along in growth process and should work out much better (fingers crossed).

Triple Crown Thornless Blackberry Bush from Home Depot

Instructions to care for the plant on the back

Blackberry Container #1

Blackberry Container #2
I've tried two other sets of blackberry plants in these same containers.  When I removed the old ones to transplant these larger ones I noticed the roots were dead, which leaves me scratching my head as to what happened.  Hopefully my third try will be a winner!

I hope to grow these plants in containers, although drainage might be an issue.  Blackberries don't like to be "flooded" and won't tolerate "mucky soils".  These will get 6 - 7 hours of full sun each day. I'll just need to be careful about watering.

After these start growing in the pots, I'll fashion some sort of make-shift trellis to train the vines. The planting instructions say that the canes can be removed after fruiting.  I know these berry plants will never be as massive in containers as they would grow in the ground, but I've seen wild black berries take over an entire fence row. In our urban setting, I want to maintain more control over their growth.  Containers also add an element of portability to the bushes.  If I decided I don't like them in the front yard, I can simply move them to the backyard (hopefully) :-)

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