Knowing how to cultivate wild blackberries allows you to plant them without the hassle and get greater quality.
By growing wild blackberries, you can use them for various purposes with the desired quantity.
This can help you save money for purchasing the blackberries in the market or paying for delivery fees if you buy them online.
Despite this fruit type being easy to grow and giving you an abundant crop, you still need to follow the standard cultivation process with exact steps.
Read on to learn how to care for wild blackberries properly and understand more about them.
What Are Wild Blackberries?
They are juicy and sweet fruit plant that grow in the form of thorny bushes and yield clusters of small berries. Blackberries are rich in minerals, fiber, antioxidants, and vitamins.
Thus, consuming these fruits provides several nutritional benefits to the body and health. Their antioxidant content can prevent dangerous and common diseases like cancer and limit inflammation.
How To Cultivate Wild Blackberries?
If you want to know how to grow black berries easily and effectively, follow these steps:
Choose A Spacious Location
How do blackberries spread? It will spread underground and need more space, unlike other plants that can be grown next to each other like tomatoes and cucumbers.
So the first important thing you must do is find and opt for a spacious location to develop delicious berries.
A large enough place can accommodate blackberry bushes or allow you to prepare for the pruning of the wild blackberry brambles.
In addition, the bush can develop in abundant quantities and spread out through your entire yard if you don’t keep an eye on them.
You need to realize that these new blackberries in your garden aren’t lively and carefree plants.
So, it’s necessary to notice this step to plant wild blackberries properly if you don’t want to make your bushes get poor development.
Cut Blackberries’ Root
Besides choosing a proper location, getting the right root cutting technique is important to promote your mature berries.
Cut a few 4- to 6-inch pieces from the top of the blackberry stem and put them in moist potting soil with the wet mixture of horticultural sand and peat (or other horticultural sand substitutes).
You should keep them lightly shaded and wait until the roots form.
Give the soil proper moisture by misting them frequently. Rooting hormone can be useful to boost the blackberries’ growth if available but is not required.
If you don’t know how to grow wild blackberries, learn about root cutting the blackberries first because it will become an indispensable step to completing this process.
Propagate The New Blackberries
Propagating is the best way to grow blackberries when you want to plant multiple blackberries in your garden.
You can use two main ways to propagate the new blackberries, including stem cutting and tip rooting.
Like the step above, you can use blackberries’ stems and place them in the wet mixture of soil and sand with the proper misting.
For tip rooting, take the tip from the growing wild blackberries in the soil, place it under the ground, and cover it. After 2-3 weeks, its root system will develop.
You can detach it from the parent or mother plant at that time.
Water The Wild Blackberries
After planting wild blackberries, use cold or cool water in a spray bottle to mist the blackberry cutting in the morning and night. You should water until one inch of water in the pot drains.
Wait 2-3 weeks for blackberry roots to develop.
Fertilize the Wild Blackberries
A 10-square-foot area of the garden should be sprinkled with 3 1/2 ounces of 10-10-10 fertilizer on top, and your plants should receive full sunlight.
Cover the well-drained soil used to grow blackberries with 3 inches of compost and fill it back to a depth of 6 inches.
Prune the Wild Blackberries
Like the blue source that needs pruning/trimming, it is essential to prune their canes after planting blackberry bushes. Otherwise, it will become a tangled and overgrown mess.
When pruning these blackberry plants that have thorns, you need proper care. Because the thorns can be sharp and strong, you must prepare thick and good gardening gloves.
Or, you can choose the thornless varieties to avoid hurting your skin.
You can choose spring to prune the mature blackberries. Lightly pruning one-year-old canes may help them thrive.
Besides, prune the side of second-year canes and use the rubber band to keep the plant compact and under excellent control.
This can allow the blackberries to concentrate nutrition to the new shoots for producing plenty of sweeter fruits with intense flavor in other crops of berries.
How to Care For Wild Blackberry Bushes?
The detailed guide below can help you care for your blackberries for the best growth.
Annual mulch to a 5 cm or 2-inch depth is required to maintain essential moisture and keep most weeds at bay.
Weeds around the bush are very difficult to remove once these unwelcome guests grow out of control. If the stem sticks out from the center of the plant, cut it off.
Feeding them some bone meals and fish emulation is also great. Pour the solution into the surrounding soil to replenish the nutritional levels.
Blackberries may grow at a tremendous rate each year thanks to this way.
Remember to apply a high-nitrogen all-purpose fertilizer every month when you grow wild blackberries from May to August to give the best care to your wild plants.
How To Harvest Blackberries?
It’s best wait until the delicious blackberries are completely ripe to enjoy their sweet flavor to the fullest. You can determine whether your blackberries are ready for harvest by two main methods.
The first way is to look at the color to know their ripeness. The blackberries become burgundy, dark purple, and almost black color and appear plump.
The second way is to choose to test blackberry varieties. Grasp the individual berries between your fingers and thumb and twist them slightly. It is ripe once the fruit peels off without difficulty.
If you start harvesting in late July, it’s easier to know when to gather your sweet berries. Dry and cold weather is best to start a harvest of blackberries.
And you should harvest blackberries manually to keep their forms best.
The harvest time should only last 3 weeks for the best quality, and you’d better pick them 2-3 times each week.
Frequent harvesting will reduce the risk of overripeness and fruit rot, causing fungal infections and the spread of disease.
After picking all the ripe fruits, keep them in a cool place out of direct sunlight. Eat them right away or within a day. Should you want to keep them longer, store them in the fridge for 3-4 days.
Conclusion
The above is an ultimate guide that helps you know how to cultivate wild blackberries to get tasty and nutritious fruits. Wild berries benefit your health with their various vitamins and nutritional values.
Despite being the familiar plant type, wild blackberry cultivation needs a complete and standard process.
First, you must pick a spacious location for the blackberry species to spread. Besides, you need to propagate the new blackberries with a proper watering and fertilizing amount.
Follow our guide to care for wild blackberry plants and know how to harvest them best.
