How and What to Grow in a Kitchen Garden of One Acre (10th Ed)/Blackberries, Black Cap Raspberries and Red Raspberries
BLACKBERRIES, BLACK CAP RASPBERRIES AND RED RASPBERRIES.
The culture is the same for all these, and they should be planted in liberal quantities, so that there may be plenty to preserve, as well as a full supply for the table. In my own kitchen garden I have two rows of Wilson’s Early Blackberry, one row Gregg Black Cap, and one row each of Philadelphia and Cuthbert Raspberries, and still the family cry for more, so I shall add about two rows of Wilson, Jr., Blackberries, and one of Lucretia Dewberry, in the spring. The dewberry will ripen before the blackberries, and thus prolong the season, as is already done with the two varieties of red raspberries.
The plants should be planted as early in the spring as the ground can be gotten into suitable condition, and if purchasing from a nursery, select those plants which are grown from root-cuttings, for they will not "sucker" so much, and where the garden is constantly well fed and cultivated this will save much in working, and the plants being carefully trimmed will last for years without replacing. The rows should be ten or twelve feet apart, so as to admit of free passage in cultivating and picking. As they do not grow so wildly until after the fruit has been picked, a couple of rows of peas or a row of early corn can be grown between each row. I have tried planting at closer distances, with the invariable result that by fall the berry patch was an impassable jungle. For manuring the berries coarse manure should be applied in the fall, or short, well-rotted manure in the spring; in either case plowing it under as applied; if plowed in the fall the furrows should all be thrown toward the rows, thus partly banking them over for the winter.
In the first warm days in the spring these bushes should have their trimming; all the old wood that has borne fruit will be dead and should be cut out at the ground. Three or four good healthy young shoots should be selected to each plant, cut off at three and a half or four feet in height, and the side shoots cut back to three or four inches; cut off all the rest of the suckers. This is important, for if too many are left there will be but a small crop of inferior fruit. When the whole patch has been trimmed and cleared up it should be staked; or each plant may be staked as trimmed, but the trimming will have to be left until a week or so later, as the stakes cannot be driven in the frozen ground. For this purpose I use old fence rails, sawing them in the middle and then splitting each piece into two or three stakes, or the large limbs, say one to two inches thick, left from trimming brush, can be used; the fence-rail stakes, however, last longer than the fresh cut poles, and are much more easily driven.
It will be a great help in picking-time if the row is gone over with a large pair of hedge shears, and the longest of the young shoots shortened in, so as to allow easy access to the row. Where it is more convenient, the bearing wood may be cut out as soon as the crop is gathered, thus throwing all the strength of the plant into the young shoots.
Where there is not plenty of manure, bone dust or phosphate can be sown on after the plowing in the spring and worked down with the harrow or cultivator. It, of course, takes a good deal of rope to tie all those and a good patch of grape vines up every spring, so I go to a printing office and buy the old Sisal rope which comes on the bundles of paper; this is strong, and can be bought very cheaply, as it is all in short lengths, in fact, most offices would be glad to oblige a good subscriber by giving it to him. The bushes should be planted eight feet apart in the row.