Pruning & Propagating Blackberries

   Warmer weather for the past 3 days enabled us to continue pruning thornless blackberries, and to propagate more 'Natchez' thornless blackberries.  On Sat. afternoon, 3 of our workers helped prune 'Triple Crown' thornless blackberries, while I propagated and pruned 'Natchez', so we'll have more 'Natchez' berries for customers to pick this summer and future years.

Zach Wulf (right) cut back side branches on 'Triple Crown' thornless blackberries, while Hunter Rupert and Chance Smith pruned on each side of the aisle at rear.  They fill the carts with prunings, then dump them on our burn pile to eliminate diseases on the canes.

   Blackberry pruning is a huge job each winter and early spring, and we still have many more blackberry plants to prune.  Once we finally finish pruning our 2000 or so blackberry plants, then we have to prune about 280 apple trees and about 80 pear trees.

The small plants in front & center are rooted tip layers of 'Natchez' thornless blackberries that I just transplanted.  I just pruned the large 'Natchez' plant at rear, and tied branches to the trellis wires.

   We now have about 48 pounds of 'GoldRush' apples in our cooler for sale, 9.7 pounds of #1's and about 38 pounds of #2's.  We'd like to sell the rest of these soon, so we can turn off the cooler and save electricity.  We also still have many of Bill's homemade jams for sale, all made from our homegrown fruit.  He just made more red raspberry jam last week from all the red raspberries I picked this past fall, and canned 30 jars of jam.  Prices are detailed in the previous blog post.
   If you'd like to get some apples and/or jam, phone 620-597-2450 a day ahead, and leave a message on our answering machine with your name, the day and time you'll come, and what you want to buy.  Our phone rings in our house, so I'll get your message when I come in from working in the fruit plantings (or when you call, if it's cold and I'm working on the computer).  State your phone number clearly in your message, so I can return your call to confirm.  Thanks.
   Hopefully, we'll have harvested asparagus for sale starting in early April.  We're hoping we have good crops of all our fruits and pecans this year, and we'll keep you posted.