But if you properly trellace, prune, water and fertilize a good domesticated, thorned variety then you will be absolutely amazed how much you can get from the cultivation of a few square feet.

Quote from: Dan on August 29, 2011, 08:08:18 AM
But if you properly trellace, prune, water and fertilize a good domesticated, thorned variety then you will be absolutely amazed how much you can get from the cultivation of a few square feet.

My experience with the thorned variety is to leave them alone and let Nature do it's job.
Watering them makes them larger, but not watering them makes them much much sweeter.
It may have a lot to do with climate and geographical location, but the black berries here will over run an acre in a year, 10 acres in three.
I do my best to just contain them, the damned things are a noxious weed here in the Sierra.

We must live in different climates because in East Texas and North Louisana they get sweeter as you water them more. Not sure what to make of that.

I'm not a fan of wild blackberries and I certainly wasn't trying to comment on them. I was just talking about domesticated blackberries of which there are both thorned and thornless varieties. Several actually.

I don't have scientific proof, but I believe the thorned varieties have deeper roots and that is why they do better in dry conditions. And I believe that the thornless varities, like blueberries or raspberries have more shallow roots. Not a problem if you water faithfully or if you irrigate, but a problem otherwise.

And anyway you really can get a lot more productivity out of 20-40 square feet if properly cultivated. But that means killing or transplanting the runners that come up the following year so they don't take over and it means pruning back the dead vines after they have born fruit so you don't have a briar patch.

Basically a blackberry bush is on a two year cycle. The vines that grew last year will have berries this year. And this year's new growth will be next year's berries. But if you do not prune out the vines producing this year's berries after the season, then they will be your bramble patch that tears up your hands in future years.

It's all pretty simple. And when compared to things like blueberries or rasberries it's a lot easier to cultivate and I believe you get more of a return for your time and effort.

Quote from: Dan on August 29, 2011, 09:01:19 AM
We must live in different climates because in East Texas and North Louisana they get sweeter as you water them more. Not sure what to make of that.

I'm not a fan of wild blackberries and I certainly wasn't trying to comment on them. I was just talking about domesticated blackberries of which there are both thorned and thornless varieties. Several actually.

I don't have scientific proof, but I believe the thorned varieties have deeper roots and that is why they do better in dry conditions. And I believe that the thornless varities, like blueberries or raspberries have more shallow roots. Not a problem if you water faithfully or if you irrigate, but a problem otherwise.

And anyway you really can get a lot more productivity out of 20-40 square feet if properly cultivated. But that means killing or transplanting the runners that come up the following year so they don't take over and it means pruning back the dead vines after they have born fruit so you don't have a briar patch.

Basically a blackberry bush is on a two year cycle. The vines that grew last year will have berries this year. And this year's new growth will be next year's berries. But if you do not prune out the vines producing this year's berries after the season, then they will be your bramble patch that tears up your hands in future years.

It's all pretty simple. And when compared to things like blueberries or rasberries it's a lot easier to cultivate and I believe you get more of a return for your time and effort.

It's common knowledge if you starve berries of water, they gain in sugar content.
Here in Ca at the vineyards they starve the grapes of water, then when their sugar content is at a peak, they water the crap out of them and the grape balloons in size.

Try it on your berries next year, cut back the water a week or two before harvest, then drown them for a couple of days before you pick them, you'll be shocked at how sweet and big they get.

I got it now. Just misunderstood. Definitely agree that you want to drown them a couple of days before picking so they are fat and juicy.

Quote from: Dan on August 29, 2011, 02:23:14 PM
I got it now. Just misunderstood. Definitely agree that you want to drown them a couple of days before picking so they are fat and juicy.

I have some wild ones down at the creek that are sour as can be, but they get so much water that they are as big as almonds including the shell.

The first time I saw them I got really excited, picked a handful of the giant black beauties and popped them in my mouth.
Like biting a lemon, I puckered up like I sucked an alum stick. :o

Basically, I like to grow domesticated versions of things that grow like weeds around where I live. Blackberries, muscadines and plums. Much, much easier. They are conditioned to handling drought and pests better than other fruits. Basically all you have to do is prune, water and fertilize and in the case of muscadines and blackberries you would want to trellace them too.

Much easier to grow these things in my climate than blueberries or rasberries.

Weeds? Weeds we can grow in abundance and berries of all sorts and apples, but beyond that, it just gets too damn cold in the Winter. :(

I would think root crops would be workable. Potatoes, carrots, turnips, garlic, etc.

Also you could work a small greenhouse for things like tomoatos so you could enjoy them year round.

Quote from: Dan on August 30, 2011, 12:01:53 PM
I would think root crops would be workable. Potatoes, carrots, turnips, garlic, etc.

Also you could work a small greenhouse for things like tomoatos so you could enjoy them year round.

They do, that is, if you are willing to import a few thousand dollars or dirt.
Tomatoes do well up here and we plan on a greenhouse soon, we still have a garage/shop/storage to build, that alone will cost several thousand, then there is the battery bank I want to replace at another 10 grand.

Now if I could just get that damn money tree to grow, the guy that sold it to me threw in a few magic cucumber tree seeds, but we all know there is no such thing as cucumber tree. ::)

You might be able to economize on the dirt if you went with raised beds. Also you probably have a ton of trees that could give you leaves for big compost piles. I bet you'll make it into something really great.

Quote from: Dan on August 30, 2011, 03:53:28 PM
You might be able to economize on the dirt if you went with raised beds. Also you probably have a ton of trees that could give you leaves for big compost piles. I bet you'll make it into something really great.

No leaves, just giant Doug fir trees.
We will do raised beds, but to do it right, I want a huge green house, but that is on the back burner for now...

Quote from: Solar on August 30, 2011, 03:57:20 PM
No leaves, just giant Doug fir trees.
We will do raised beds, but to do it right, I want a huge green house, but that is on the back burner for now...

:( :( :( :( :(

Oxygen absorbers are very effective.

Quote from: Possumpoint on April 01, 2011, 10:20:36 AM
Lots of good ideas here; thanks for sharing. Been storing extra food for years but one of the biggest problems was keeping abreast of the expiration dates. Use a MS Access to track it now. Just need to faithfully do adds and removes. Surprising how much space is needed for the storage.

What I don't  have a good feel for is how much ammo is enough. I own a semi-automatic pistol, double barrel 12ga shotgun and a single shot .308.

We are finding out how quickly you lose space when storing food, unfortunately you can't keep it just anywhere, it has to stay cool and dry.
So were looking at digging out an area in the mountain side for a bunker style storage, that way if we have a forest fire, we don't lose everything.
Right now, we'd be wiped out if we had one.