Blackberries.
Return to DiscussionsAlways liked wild ones. But I've been thinking of propagating them for market. Then went hunting for info and found plenty. Looks like they'd make an excellent high profit commercial crop. So I decided to do it. Best location to get a good start is along the neighbors drive, so I drove the trackhoe up there and spent several hours yesterday and today clearing the area of saplings. We had cleared it several years ago but never did anything further. While it's not a good location for nude work along the drive where the neighbors and their friends pass by commonly. It won't be my personal garden either. Just plan on putting it into trellised rows of tame thornless blackberries. And I will have to hire pickers when the crop is ready, with the packing boxes and refrigerated truck ready to handle it. A place where I will have to have non nudists working. But I have extensive garden places very isolated. 80 acres is enough mountainside to hide a lot on. Could expand the berry areas to other places and have work for those who like to work nude, which includes myself of course.
I didn't know that you could get thornless blackberries. There are a lot of hybrids between blackberries and raspberries which are cultivated. They have other names.
Blackberries, or brambles, grow wild here in the UK and they spread rapidly. The quick growing, long, thorny stems root where they touch the ground and the roots run just below ground producing further plants at intervals. They can quickly produce a tangled thorny thicket. It is sensible to harvest the fruit in clothing to avoid getting scratched. Anyhow they grow wild in so many places here we have no problem in getting the fruit for free.
I was in a gang of volunteers who spent two days digging up brambles recently in a world heritage garden. We could have given you bags of plants by the trailer load.
To me the thornless blackberries don't taste so good as the wild ones and produce less corp as well but they are bigger. Yes I get scratched picking the wild ones while nude but it is just one of those things but the biggest problem for me will be for 2019 season is the ones I have been doing nude have been cut right back so unlikely will crop this year so I will have to see if the lady next door will allow me to pick some on her land and see if I can do it nude as well.
Yah, the wild ones grow excessively abundantly, and I have picked them nude a good bit, just have to move carefully, was thinking of possibly just growing them for market since they cost nothing to get, but the time spent picking is an issue to consider when paying pickers, and the breeders have been at work breeding sweeter and more productive thornless varieties for market that are 2-3 times larger than the wild ones, and so pickers get a lot more picked for the time spent. so they are the only ones worth doing in large scale. I just ordered 40 plants of 4 varieties to get started, gotta geta place ready to plant them next week. I'm putting them down in my lower area so I can care for them nude. The main growing area will be along the neighbors drive where I don't feel safe nude, (for their benefit mostly) and where I'll be hiring local pickers. (the neighbor has said he wants to be a picker, he's a local city codes inspector but that's a part time job and he will retire sooner or later) I feel like I do not want regular help with work in my naturist gardening areas unless that help is naturist as well. Just don't want to feel restricted on that point.
Spent most of the day fixing the tractor, but finally got it done enough to rototill the strips, one batch of berries came and got them planted, the others arrive tomorrow. It was just warm enough to not wear a thing for most of it. (cept shoes since the ground is covered with last years wild blackberry canes I mowed down) But started getting chilly before I was done so put on an old sweat shirt that was residing in the truck for such purpose. My brother has been trying some tame blackberries from the store. (from Mexico) They do taste just as good as the wild ones I think. It's the older thornless introductions that were so sour. My aunt has some of those and they are hard to eat very many without dumping sugar on. I'm getting some fairly recent introductions marketed for commercial production so I hope they are good flavored, if they about like what we get in the store they will be good.