GARDENING : Juicy Ideas to Give Fruit to a Berry Good Back Yard

When I was a kid growing up on the East Coast, my sisters and I spent hot summer days in the woods eating blueberries and blackberries right off the vine. At the end of the day, to our mother’s dismay, we’d come home with spoiled appetites and blue-black hands and mouths. But we didn’t mind. What bothered us was the coming of fall and no more berries.

Today I have berry vines in my own back yard that I planted several years ago, not only for myself, but for my daughter. I believe that children should be able to pick a fresh berry--or two or three or four--whenever the urge strikes.

If you haven’t had a home-grown berry, you’re definitely missing something. Store-bought berries have been picked when still firm, and at that point they are generally tart, tasteless or only mildly sweet. When allowed to ripen on the vine, there is probably no fruit sweeter and more juicy than a berry.

Raspberries, blackberries and boysenberries are all vining plants that tend to sprawl and do best when trained on a trellis or wall. Blueberries are the only berries in the group that grow on a bush. All berry plants produce well for a long time--for at least 10 to 12 years, says Marc Hall, assistant manager of Armstrong Garden Center in Santa Ana.

While most people know what raspberries and blueberries look like, they often have a hard time distinguishing between blackberries and their cousins, boysenberries. “Boysenberries are slightly larger than blackberries and are more of a ruby red, rather than black. They also come in a thornless variety,” Hall says. “Blackberries are medium-sized and more numerous.”

Now is the time to plant berries, which are planted bare-root. You can find bare-root plants in the nursery now until about the end of February, Hall says.

Before planting your berries, it’s important to pick the right home for them and properly prepare the soil.

“Berries only need a half day of sun to fruit well,” Hall says. “A location with morning sun and afternoon shade is the best, especially for raspberries and blueberries, which will scorch and shrivel in the summer if they get too much sun.”

To plant your bare-root raspberries, boysenberries and blackberries, dig a hole twice as big as the plant’s existing root system. Then mix half of the soil you removed from the ground with the same amount of homemade compost or bagged mulch. Hall also suggests adding some fertilizer such as blood meal and bone meal, according to package directions.

Next, put most of the soil back in the hole, creating a mound. Spread the roots of the berry plant over the mound and add the rest of the soil. Pack the soil down firmly and make a water well around the plant for watering.

Blueberries should be planted in the same manner as the other berries; they just require a more acid soil. “Mix one-third garden soil, one-third coarse Irish peat moss and one-third planter mix,” Hall says. “If the soil is clayey and compacted, you should also add some sharp sand, which will improve drainage.” In addition to blood meal and bone meal, blueberries also benefit from a handful of aluminum sulfate per hole, Hall says.

For best fruiting, blueberries require cross-pollination. Planting three or more bushes ensures maximum production.

Berries also do well when planted in containers, says Hall, who suggests using a container that is at least 15 gallons or a 2-foot by 24-inch oak barrel. Also make sure to provide the berries with a rich soil. Half topsoil and half azalea mix works well for containerized berries, along with blood meal and bone meal.

Because blueberries require a more acid soil, when planting them in containers you can use straight peat moss or half potting soil and half peat moss, says Santa Ana gardener Marie Bouse, past president of the Orange County chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers. She grows a great deal of fruits and vegetables in containers, including blueberries.

“When growing blueberries and other berries in containers, just make sure to water and fertilize them more frequently,” Bouse says. “And never let containers dry out.”

If you’d like an adequate supply of berries for each member of the family, try planting six to eight plants for a family of four or about two plants per person, says gardener Ed Fishburn of Tustin, who at one time had 50 raspberry, blackberry and boysenberry plants.

When planted bare-root, berry plants should show signs of growth within a month. If planted in the winter or early spring, they will usually produce a small crop the first summer, but won’t produce a full crop until the following year.

Berries ripen at different times, depending on the variety. Expect early varieties to ripen in May or June, mid-season in June or July and late season in July, August and sometimes September. No matter what the variety, berries tend not to ripen all at once, which means you can enjoy them for many weeks.

Before harvesting, realize that vine-ripened berries tend to look different than their store counterparts, which were picked before their peak. Berries are generally ready to eat when they come off the vine with a gentle tug and have become a dark, dull color. Boysenberries, for instance, look ripe when they have a reddish glow to them, but they aren’t really sweet until they’ve turned almost black, Fishburn says. Taste a few berries before harvesting a lot.

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Berries are fairly simple to maintain. Probably your most important task is to prune them after they are done bearing in the fall or winter. “Generally, the best time to prune them is when they are dormant, which is usually December or January,” Hall says.

To prune raspberries, blackberries and boysenberries, cut the canes that bore fruit the previous summer all the way down to the ground. Leave the newest canes that haven’t yet fruited to bear for the following season.

“If you don’t prune off canes that have already fruited, you will get a crowded, less vigorous plant that will produce a small yield,” Hall says.

The best way to make pruning and berry growing in general easy is to use a trellis system. The first year, train all of the vines onto the trellis. These should bear, while new vines grow out from the base of the plant. After the vines on the trellis are done bearing, prune them down to the ground and train the new vines onto the trellis; they will bear the following year. Continue this cycle year after year.

If you aren’t sure if a cane produced fruit the previous season, look at its size. “Older canes are twice as big and either dark cinnamon or gray in color,” Hall says. “Young canes, on the other hand, are very thin and green with bronze overtones.”

Not only does trellising berries make pruning easier, it also keeps berries away from the soil and makes harvesting a snap.

A variety of trellis types work well. You can use a wooden trellis or a fence. Fishburn says he has had the best luck with a wire trellis, which he constructed by stretching three wires at intervals between posts. “I trained the vines to grow on the wire by winding them around,” he says.

Hall has a similar trellis method. He attaches two- to three-inch animal wire to lodge poles stakes and lets the vines climb this.

Because blueberries are a bush, they do not need to be supported with a trellis. They also only need to be lightly pruned just to shape them, Hall says.

Each year when you prune your berries, Hall suggests fertilizing them with blood meal and bone meal or tree and shrub food that contains a high amount of phosphorus. Blueberries should also get a dose of aluminum sulfate. When the plants are bearing, supplementing with a liquid food, such as fish emulsion, is also a good idea.

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Berry plants should be soaked well twice a week during hot weather and once every two weeks during cooler winter months, unless there is rainfall.

The best way to keep berries evenly moist is to surround the soil surface with mulch, such as homemade compost, steer manure, aged grass clippings, brown leaves or bagged mulch. Not only will this keep the berries moist, as the mulch breaks down, it will slowly provide the berry plants with important nutrients and will cut down on weeds.

Berries are generally not bothered by pests, though birds sometimes can’t resist the lure of a ripe berry. To discourage them, drape bird netting over the plants. And scale--minute parasites that attach to the plant--is also sometimes a problem, Hall says. This is easily dealt with by spraying with an all-season horticultural spray oil.

You may find that your berry plant will send out runners, which are long stems that have roots on them. If you would like to create a new plant with a runner, simply bury the roots in the ground and secure the stem with a rock. Then in two months or so, the runner’s roots should be strong enough to support a new plant.

Simply sever the runner from the mother plant and you’ve got a whole new plant at no cost.