Malcolm writes
Gordon H wrote:
In message , Ragnar
writes

I am fairly sure that Blackberry flowers on the 'old wood', not the
current
year's shoots. SO if you were pruning back the vigorous growth last year
that could explain why you have no flowers this year. Only prune
stems that
have borne fruit, and then take them right back to ground level.
R.

That's correct, they definitely fruit on last years growth.
I used to train each new stem separately across the fence behind them
as they grew, and cut out last years' after fruiting.
Otherwise it's a tangle to get at the fruit next year.
Do they call it Spandeling or something like that? g
Dont know the wnswer to that but they definitely flower on last years
growth. Mine has a total of about 25ft. of growth from last year (I
cut back all of the previous years growth in the winter) anf I am
seeing many buds on side shoots from last years growth and am expecting
about 10 lbs, as I had last year.

In the autumn/early winter cut out all the wood which has fruited
having tied in and trained the new wood as it grows.

The suggestion is that you train last year's growth into a fan shape,
and tie in all this year's shoots vertically. then the autumn pruning is
simple - cut all the fan shoots at the base, untie the vertical bundle
and spread them out into a fan.

If you let last year's and this year's shoots mix in with each other,
untangling them all for pruning in the autumn is a real pain, especially
when you get to the stage of each shoot being 10 ft or so.
--
Kay