Driveway Blackberries

 At my new place, I've had nothing but heartache so far with planted blackberry cultivars.  The power company sprayed herbicide on ones I had planted--twice--killing about three dozen in the two episodes. Others I have planted have not thrived.

However, I do have wild ones growing in various places. One such spot is along my driveway.  There's a substantial thicket that is heavily shaded, but does produce some decent-tasting berries (although they're rather small, as wild berries are likely to be).

So far, I seem to mostly have luck with wild berries rather than the ones I have planted.  At my old suburban house, I did have some University of Arkansas cultivars that did well (Ouachita and Navajo; Apache wasn't so good).  I have planted both of those at the new place, but am still waiting on my first harvest.  Back in the suburbs, there were berries along the road (at least until the county came along and mowed them down).

Harvest time is now for these along the driveway; they just started to ripen about a week ago (early-mid June) and are now ripening rapidly.  As these are wild, one can end up punctured and ensnared pretty easily when picking.  Inevitably, some clusters of alluring berries are too far back to reach without bloodletting.  However, there's enough low-hanging or peripheral fruit to provide some satisfaction.

 

Wild Muscadines

Muscadine grapes are a native variety that do well in the South.  The European-style grapes have plant disease issues when grown here.  There are a number of cultivars that produce very nice grapes (albeit all with seeds--no way around that).  Most or all state agricultural extension services in the southern US have pages devoted to muscadines, e.g., UGA.  Somewhat confusingly, the different states' sites offer conflicting information.  Ison's, a nursery that has developed and patented a large number of muscadine varieties, has a table that more or less lines up with the information available from the extension services (keeping in mind occasional disagreements--which may be related to how different varieties perform in different regions).

There are wild types growing...wild...everywhere in the South.  I have seldom seen any female vines with fruit on them, but when walking through the woods near the well recently, found one growing on an old fence.  The picture at the right was taken in early July.

I was wondering if I'd ever see any fruit off of the plant.  Muscadines are eaten by a variety of wildlife, and north Georgia also has been in a fairly severe drought since spring.  Most farmers in the area have no irrigation (with 50+" of rain per year, it's normally not needed), and I saw a number of fields where the corn crop was lost.  Wheat was not as heavily-impacted, though yields may have dropped, and soybeans got off to a very slow start but some rains arrived in August to keep things going--temporarily.  September has been mostly dry, as well.  The drought has caused a more or less total loss of my own black walnut crop this year; in April and May things were looking decent but all of the nuts dropped early.  Some hickories are dropping now but I haven't opened any up yet to see if they are developed.

I did get a harvest--one grape--off the vine pictured above.  When I looked in early September one was ripe with a couple of others still green.  The grape was tiny but the flavor was okay.  The skin was thick and fairly tart, but overall it wasn't bad.  I hope this plant continues to develop.  It will probably never amount to much because it's under a fairly dense oak canopy.  Still, it's a nice find.  Then again, I may have to cut it out.  If it grows substantially, it might pull down the old fence. The old fence isn't serving much functional purpose currently, but I don't want it to end up on the ground.

I see wild muscadines littering the trail where I run in August, both bronze and black, but they grow high in the trees, so the grapes usually split or at least get badly bruised in the fall to the ground: they are seldom in good / edible condition.

I have a trellis set up for muscadines--more domesticated varieties--but I haven't planted them yet.  I need to get my fencing set up for the vines when they are installed; I have a substantial deer population in the field where they will be going.  That's a project for the off season coming up.

Blackberries

This is blackberry season.  I have some named thornless cultivar bushes that have never really taken off (Navajos and Ouachitas).  Their berries are decent, but I planted them on a bank that I think had been very compacted... I remember when I first planted them it was like cutting clay for making pots.  So they haven't spread out into the 30' long thicket along the bank that I envisaged.  They put out one or two canes per year, and my harvest has remained small.  Interestingly, the deer seem to leave them alone.  I don't seem to have any predation when the berries ripen.  I do occasionally find stink bugs on them, and biting into a stink bug-fouled berry is not a good experience. :-(

Wild blackberries, in my experience, are a chancy thing.  Some produce very good berries, I've learned.  The ones in the photo at right are growing right along the road not far from my house.  I've been picking a few each day for a couple of weeks; nobody else seems interested in them.  The berries are varied in size but some are reasonably large.  They're sweet with a bit of a bitter aftertaste.  Ones growing in a corner of my garden--I let them go last year to see how they would turn out--aren't so good.  Ditto a small collection of canes that sprouted up near the corner of my garage last year.  This year they are producing berries that are small and mostly bitter.

I'm thinking I'd like to get cuttings off of some of the roadside canes.  There are plenty of first-year canes available.  As you probably know, blackberries are biennial--this year's new sprouts produce flowers and berries next year, then they shut down.  So if one sprouts somewhere, it takes over a year to find out if it'll be any good.

And the thorns...I've been stuck multiple times in the last couple of weeks.  Tonight I was pulling berries from another thicket on my property along the woods and a six-foot first-year cane snagged on the back of my shirt.  That was not so good.  I couldn't see it and couldn't get it off me for a minute.  I think I damaged it in the process, alas--that collection of bushes is also producing berries worth eating.

What do I do with them?  So far I just eat them fresh.  I tried canning some store-bought ones one year in syrup, and that was okay but not great.  I don't like dehydrating them.  In my limited repertoire, that leaves freezing or making preserves as the remaining alternatives.  So far I haven't done either.