Starting a Row of Blackberries
Spring is here and it is time to get your blackberry plants pruned and ready for a new season. This season, we are adding a new row of blackberries to our patch here at the Barbour home. They are easy to maintain and absolutely delicious. If you are considering planting blackberries, now is the time.
Cost: $65-$100
Equipment
- shovel
- gloves (optional )
- shears (needed for pruning, not starting a new row)
- 3 fence post
- 2 50 in. x 8 ft. cattle fence (trellis of some sort)
- weed mat (optional )
- blackberry plants or starters
Instructions
- Decide where you want to plant your blackberry bushes. Find a place that will get a good amount of sun and that has well drained soil.
- Mow or weed-eat that specific area as low as you can. You want to start with as little grass there as possible. This isn’t necessary, but will help you when you go to lay down the weed mat.
- Place three fence posts in the ground. The ones we used were 4 feet tall and metal. You can push them in pretty easily after a rain or if the ground is soft. You can use a post driver to push them down a bit further, but you could use a hammer or rubber mallet to get them deeper into the ground. For our particular row, we put one fence post on each end and one fence post in the middle. You may need more posts, depending on how long your row is going to be.
- Now it is time to attach your fence. We used two steel fence sections that were around 50 inches high and 8 feet long. We ended up with 16 feet total. You can use other types of materials to create a trellis for your plants. We use zip ties to hold the fence against the posts. You can’t use enough so add as many as you would like. You want it to be secure. We took the zip tie, put it through the holes on the fence post and around the fence sections.
- Dig the holes to plant your starters or plants. Follow the planting directions on the container if you purchased potted plants. If you are using starters, make sure the roots are covered with soil. We planted ours about every 6 inches.
- If you are planting two rows, you will want to lay down some weed mat in between the rows to save yourself some weeding time in the future.
- Give them some water. We watered ours every day at the beginning of the first season to give them a good start.
