Making friends with the ever-present blackberries

Hans Quistorff wrote:  So select the best main canes and space them so the fruiting canes have room to be accessible.  My root crowns are now the size of a football and the canes are over an inch in diameter. A 100 foot row produces a 3 gallon bucket of berries each day and because they are well trained it only takes me 30 to 45 minutes to fill the bucket.

Hans Quistorff wrote:Yes Qberry farm has embraced Himalaya blackberries.  With their larger canes they are more self supporting and basically  require more pruning than my Boysenberries and Loganberries. They start ripening as those finish producing and do not stop producing until winter rains start making them rot.   Having sturdy posts and wire to tie them to is the first step.  They grew on the field fence where the birds would rest so I removed the fencing except for the top wire six feet up. anything above that gets tied down to the wire or pruned off if there is not enough room.  All spent fruiting spurs are pruned off during the winter and and any main canes that turn brown [some main Cains bear a second year]  During thew winter the first year canes will grow with the intention of reaching the ground and tip rooting so it takes diligent pruning these off to keep them in control.  Side shouts come off the main cane in the spring which are the fruiting canes.  So select the best main canes and space them so the fruiting canes have room to be accessible.  My root crowns are now the size of a football and the canes are over an inch in diameter. A 100 foot row produces a 3 gallon bucket of berries each day and because they are well trained it only takes me 30 to 45 minutes to fill the bucket.  On my Facebook cover the Himalaya  are on the right of the 2 rows of boysenberries.  The logan berries are on the other side to be shaded from the afternoon sun which causes the delicate fruit to scaled.

Jenny Wright wrote:

Hans Quistorff wrote:  should I dig up the extra crowns so they are nicely spaced? What kind of distance do you have between crowns?

Leaving the root in the ground in a god area is best - as tough as the blackberries seem, they really don't transplant very well.  
As Hans said, if you tie up the first year canes it separates them from the 2nd year canes for easier berry picking the the 2nd year canes can be cut when they brown out.  The long 1st year canes can be trained along a wire or wrapped in a big circle like a blackberry wreath on a pole - just keep the tips off the ground to prevent a thicket from forming..

Stacy Witscher wrote:To my taste, himalayan  blackberries are bland, maybe adding some fertility would help that. It's worth a try. Fortunately I only have a relatively small patch of those. I have planted marionberries which are the only blackberry that I really like but they again want more fertility than I currently have to get large and tasty.
This year we removed all the himalayan blackberry canes but they have of course come roaring back. I will try adding nutrients and see if it helps with the taste.

This is very encouraging; thank you! One place I’ve really had difficulty eradicating them is right next to our back of raised beds. I've got some blueberries there, but they’re less than happy in that spot. I think maybe this fall I’ll move the blueberries to a sunnier spot and create a support structure for the blackberries that are already rooted there. It’s on the downhill side of a slope, so kind of a natural swale effect, which will help give them the water that they like without drowning them (and very little additional water needed for them, which would be ideal). A little structure, some judicious pruning…yes, I think that’s manageable.  Should benefit both the blueberries that are surviving but not thriving and provide us with some additional fruit.