Hi folks!
I've been brainstorming a way to control Himalayan blackberries for quite some time, and I'd like to do a sanity check here, and/or see if anyone has done anything similar. I got sheep some time ago, with the chief aim of reclaiming and expanding an orchard/soon-to-be-food-forest on my property from invasive blackberries and other various
native brush that had gotten WAY out of control. I think I've managed that pretty well, and now that I'm re-planting the orchard, I'd like to set some space aside for blackberries! I'm curious about ways to cultivate, encourage, and control them!
Containment is the first step, and the sheep have been doing a great job - whatever I build, anything that gets out will be immediately eaten; turns out the sheep love them, so low maintenance on my end! :D
The next step is to allow them some space to grow the parent canes - I think I read that only year-old canes will flower and bear fruit. I crushed everything down for the sheep to eat this year, so all the canes are basically cut back to the ground and will be trampled all winter. I think what I'll do is
fence around a 4-foot wide strip with lots of parent canes in it, probably in the East/West direction so everyone gets lots of light. The sheep can eat any canes that escape, and keep the whole mess growing upward. I have lots of leftover 4-foot tall fencing, which
should be
enough to direct them upward for the next step.
The third step is the one I feel like I need help on - what's the best setup for harvesting?? I've picked them in several different locations and setups, but it's hard to determine which was the most fruitful. It feels like the plants like to present their berries in a specific way for a specific purpose, so I'm trying to use that to my advantage - but what is that purpose? Is it for birds to pick so the berries are on top, or better out the sides of the thicket? The worst method of picking is definitely slashing into a thicket to pick - the berries are evenly distributed, and it's hard to find a 'motherlode'. It feels like the best opportunities have been when they're arranged on a wall of some kind, either trailing down or poking out of a brush-wall of their own making. I like the idea of an overhead
trellis, but I'm not sure the fruit would hang down through like I would want, and that maybe it would just use it to climb even higher and start it's thicket 8 feet high! Another idea is a slanted fence-wall/trellis thing. I think I would slope it towards the North if I were to do this - shoots would be eaten on the bottom side in the shade, and fruit-producing shoots would come up through on the sunny side, I think? I'd have to limit the size to make it actually pickable, and it might still require some management from me. The last technique would be the simplest I think, just an 8-foot vertical
fence. I imagine the brambles would
mushroom out the top, and I'd have plenty of pickable fruit at ~3-10 feet high. It might require occasional trimming, but really the sheep should take care of anything that gets really out of control, without the brambles really ever escaping.
That's all I can think of! Does anyone else have any
experience or observations on how they behave in containment/propagation? It seems like all we do is slash them back, but gosh darn it those are some delicious berries!
