Final berry harvest

From one of our primocane blackberry plantings of this year:

Oh, if they were all this big. The frosts of last Saturday and Sunday will complete the harvest for this year.

Don't just stand there looking at the sky...

Get to work!

This guy's been taking too much time staring at the clouds instead of keeping you folks updated.

Most of the past month has been spent cutting weeds:

Mowing:

Also, a mower repair and assorted other duties, such as tying up blackberry vines for next year's crop:

I took several cuttings from the vines to propagate for next year and buried other vines in hopes of a bumper crop next year. Who knows what next year will bring? A handful of blackberries has been a sweet reward after a hot day working (or staring at the clouds).

Wednesday wildlife, catbirds

I'm seeing more and more of the these insect feeders over the past several weeks and I don't recall seeing them prior to this year. Catbirds feed off of insects although it's reported that they will eat into our fruit production.

They can eat all the bugs they want and I hope they get fat. But they can stay away from the ripening blackberries:

These plants of the Triple Crown variety are just starting to turn but yields this year isn't high enough for our liking.

Bloomin' Tuesday, blackberries

Dozens of them! :

This variety is a Triple Crown that we picked up from Lowe's a couple of years ago and produced fairly well for us last year. The plant has produced well this year while the others are a bit behind.

A thornless plant that has exceeded our expectations for size and flavor and I look forward to a handful after a day of cutting weeds come August through the first frost.

Blackberries!

This one blackberry bush has been producing for about three weeks now. Just enough for a handful of berries every 5-7 days. This Triple Crown thornless variety has excellent flavor for us to enjoy.

 

We planted 4 last year and this bush has given us a taste of what could come in the years ahead. We added more Triple Crown, and then Chester, Navaho and Apache cultivars this spring to make two short rows. All are thornless which means it is easier to pick and easier for the critters to steal from us. The Apache is borderline for our planting zone, but we'll give it a try.

Raccoon and starlings have plundered this and another bush. They seem to know the perfect time that the berries are ripe and have gotten there ahead of us more than once. We added chicken wire to the defenses and now we have had a few berries of our own to eat.