strawberries and blackberries

[rnmom23]

This is our first year in our country home and so I just ordered some 1-2 year strawberry plants (20) and 1-2 year blackberry bushes (4). Can't wait to taste our first homegrown fruit! However, I know little about the care of these plants. Any tips/advice to help them thrive? I live in the northeast. Can the strawberries be planted with the veggies? How much room do they need? I heard they spread pretty quick. Thanks!

[hollym]

I have blackberries. They like lots of water and rich soil. They will make more plants if you bury a little bit of a cane for a while. I stake it down with an old tent peg. Depending on the kind you got, they will flower on last year's canes? It took mine a couple of years to get going. So..if you have that kind, you let them produce fruit, and then you prune the ones that just did and leave the newer ones for next year.

hollym

[Greg]

I heard you should remove all blueberry flowers and fruit in year one to make the root system stronger. Same for strawberries - but 6 weeks if its everbearing type.

[D]

My strawberry plants are planted on the edges of my asparagus bed -- one's shallowed rooted, one's not, and both are perennial, so it seems to work fairly well. ('Cept you'd probably have to plant the asparagus first...)

Blackberries grow wild around here. They don't like lime, I've heard. There seems to be a great variety in size and taste, even among the wild ones. I usually try to weedeat a path through the middle of the blackberry patches -- so the chiggers don't get me before I get the berries.

Oh and my strawberry plants are a little over a foot apart. My XMIL has a patch of strawberries that was solid strawberries 3' wide and 15' long. Delicious but we had to watch pretty carefully for copperheads when we were picking them.

Happy eating!