On Monday, June 2, 2014 7:42:25 PM UTC-5, bluechick wrote:
Yay! The dewberries started getting ripe right after the first of the
rains last week. We've been able to pick some for several days and
most of them were plump little guys. If the rain keeps up, maybe this
will be a good berry year.

The wild blackberries, for the most part, aren't ready yet but I
picked about a half dozen while we were looking for dewberries. They
still look smallish and I don't know if they're going to plump up. On
the other hand, DH picked one berry off the Kiowi we planted last
year. It's HUGE! It's about 2 inches long and 1 inch across. It was
billed as a whopper blackberry, with berries getting up to 3 inches in
length, but I didn't believe the hype until now. Has anyone else
grown Kiowi? It has some wicked thorns on it. We also planted some
thornless varieties (Arapaho and Ouachita) at the same time but they
seem to be less vigorous. Anyone with experience with thornless
blackberries?


I've been very happy with my thornless blackberries which I planted perhaps 20 years ago. Don't make the error I made and plant them next to a fence because of course they will spread and soon will be right up against the fence and then you won't have the access to keep the weeds under control. This is a good damp berry year here. I have been picking raspberries and the thornless blackberries are just turning pink now.