Blackberry - can they be tamed?

[FlowerpotGirl]

Hi all

On my new (and very overgrown Allotment) there is a Blackberry bush. To me its both good and bad. If I get rid of it I'll lose out on Blackberries, but if I keep it is it likely to become a great beast and take over? I think its only the mass of weeds and grass that are keeping it in check at the moment.

Is there anyway of training it up, or along poles? I thought it could make an effective weather break if it would be trained sideways along trellis.

I've only ever seen them in monster form but can they be tamed?

Thank you

[Nicos]

Is it a wild , self seeded bramble type or a bought one ( you'll have to guess by where it is growing I think)...also size/colour of flowers)

If it's a modern variety then yes- very easy to train and cut back.
How about having a natter with your lottie neighbours and ask them about it?
They will most likely, over the years, know if there has been one there before and if it was trained etc.
Your new friends on there will be a mine of historical info especially when you start and try to sort out why, what ,where
Also- what grows best/worst in the soil.

[Kirk]

If it is a wild bramble then I would suspect not a lot can be done to "tame" it.

If it is a cultivated variety then they can be as I have found they generally throw out 2 or 3 fairly substantial canes each year and you train these along wires or whatever the framework will be.

So a lot will depend on what it is, and I would initially have thought it is/was a wild bramble.

May I ask where the allotment is? I just see you are in the same area as myself.

[FlowerpotGirl]

Hiya, I'm in Letchworth, Herts. I think its a self seeder to be honest as its in a weird place to be planted...in my opinion that is. Its kind of sprawling in the middle of the plot and looks like the wild ones at the edge of the hedge.

[Nicos]

Same flowers?

[FlowerpotGirl]

Yep. The normal mainly white with a hint of pink type. I'm going up tonight so I'll take a proper picture of it

[Martin H]

There were lots of brambles on my plot when I took it over. I dug them all up except a line along one edge. These I train as a two-dimensional screen. The long new growths each year either get tied onto a framework of posts and wires or cut off at the ground. These provide the following year's fruit. I'm sure most of the plants are self-seeded, either wild or hybrid, but the berries are very tasty anyway. And free, obviously.

There is one thornless plant among them but most of the plants are vicious!

[Funny onion]

I did something similar to Martin H, except I'm lazy and found it grew quicker than I got around to building its cage. I ended up building a second fence panel parallel to the first and now it lives between them and I chop any bits that escape over the top when I can be bothered.

[Noosner]

I'm a big fan of wild blackberries so I would keep it. I had them along the back fence in my last garden and though they did need a lot of cutting back, the blackberries that came were prolific and delicious. I got the impression that the regular savage pruning encouraged them to fruit a lot.

[Martin H]

I got the impression that the regular savage pruning encouraged them to fruit a lot.

You need to treat them like summer raspberries - they flower on spurs from last year's wood. So cut down all the fruited bits in the autumn and tidy up as much of the current year's growth as you want to keep for next year's fruit.

[FlowerpotGirl]

Thanks all. I've removed the epic one in the middle of the plot as it was squashing my rhubarb and potatoes. But I've unearthed another one by the fence line next to the Raspberry, Blackcurrant and Gooseberry bushes Its worked quite well and I have a nice little fruit corner