Technique and timing of planting blackberries

Choosing a landing site

Planting blackberries should be done in a place where the seedlings will have enough sunny color, but always protected from the wind. The fact is that the wind can pretty much interfere with the pollination process or break young shoots of plants. It is possible to plant blackberries on the southwest slopes, which will protect the blackberry seedlings from the cold northerly winds. The best fruit is a bush planted on loamy or sandy loam soil. The soil for blackberries should be well-drained, well supplied with oxygen.

Planting blackberries

Blackberries can be planted in fall or spring. If you choose the autumn option, then you need to plant the seedlings in early autumn, before the frosts come - the root system of the bush must have time to take root and get a little stronger, otherwise the seedling may not survive the cold. Needless to say, autumn planting is only acceptable for winter-hardy varieties.

The scheme for planting blackberries is as follows: the holes are dug 0.5 x 0.5 m, keeping the distance between the pits at 1.5 m, and keeping the row spacing at 2.5 m.About 5 kg of humus is introduced into each hole, up to 40 g of superphosphate and 20 g of potassium salt. Having mixed the nutrients with the top layer of earth from the hole, the pits are filled with the resulting mixture.

Before planting a blackberry, each seedling must be carefully examined: remove damaged or frozen areas, shorten too long shoots. If you notice that the roots of the seedlings are a little dry, you can place them in water with the addition of the rooting agent for at least 1 hour.

After all the manipulations are completed, the seedling must be placed in the hole, deepening the root collar by a few centimeters. The young bush is covered with earth, shaking it slightly so that the soil gets between the roots. Further, the earth is well compacted.

After planting, several small holes are made around each bush for watering. For one seedling, you need to use an average bucket of water to properly moisten the soil. After watering, the planting site must be mulched with a protective layer.

Before the threat of frost arises, the seedling must be covered: bend it to the ground and, fixing it at the surface, cover it for the winter (for this, any covering material is used, sometimes spruce branches, fallen leaves, etc.).

Of course, this method of planting will allow you to harvest the first crop as early as next season, but it can be used with certain restrictions: in Ukraine and Russia, winter planting is possible only in the southern regions.

But much more often gardeners resort to spring planting: even if you do not pick berries this season, the bush will get strong enough before wintering and will generously thank you for next year. Planting is carried out according to the same scheme, however, there are differences: the soil for blackberry beds must be prepared in the fall. To do this, generously fertilize the selected area with humus or compost (10 liters of nutrient mixture per 1 square meter of soil).After scattering the fertilizer over the area, carefully dig it to the depth of the shovel bayonet and leave it in this form for the winter. By the spring, the garden bed will be completely ready for planting: the fertilizer will perepere and will not be too aggressive, which means that young seedlings are not threatened with phyto-diseases due to overfeeding.

The Ukrainian and Russian climate, although suitable for autumn planting, can still sometimes be overly aggressive in winter, so spring planting of blackberries is considered more preferable.

Seedling care

After the bushes are planted, the active phase in the blackberry bed is completed. Now you only need to loosen the soil around the bushes from time to time, weed weeds (if the planting sites were not protected with a layer of mulch) and water the blackberries as needed. Some gardeners recommend removing those few flowers from young plants that they can form in the first year of their life: this way you will save the bush's strength for active fruiting next year. The next top dressing of the bushes will only be needed in a year, because the soil for planting the blackberries was prepared by you.

Forming pruning is done in the fall, when fruiting is complete and all worn-out shoots can be removed. As you know, every shoot bearing fruit in the current season will no longer be useful (if it is not removed, it will only take away the vitality of the plant, reducing its yield).

Pests and diseases

Considering that blackberries are a close relative of garden raspberries, plants suffer from common diseases. So, garden blackberries, if the planting of seedlings was carried out with violations of agricultural technology or the rules of care were not followed, it can suffer from powdery mildew, white spot, gray rot or from banal rust. To prevent this, the plants must be treated with a 1% solution of Bordeaux liquid. In addition, agrotechnical rules must be followed, then you most likely will not have to fight diseases.

The list of insects that can harm your blackberry beds is somewhat more extensive: spider mites and raspberry mites, aphids, butterfly caterpillars and many others. To defeat such enemies, the bushes should be treated with Karbofos, Akarin or Fitoverm preparations.

A winning strategy against pests is to carry out preventive treatments of blackberries with one of these drugs in the spring (before the buds bloom) and in the fall (after the harvest is completely completed). Do this every year, and your blackberry will never care about annoying insects.

That's all the difficulties of growing this interesting, relatively new culture for us. Now you know how to plant blackberries in order to grow them healthy, and then they will definitely delight you with an excellent harvest.

Video "How to plant a blackberry"

In this video, you will learn when is the best and how to properly plant blackberry seedlings.