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It's the end of the growing season and my blackberry bushes look terrible
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You might have heard that the end of winter is the time to prune blackberry bushes
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And that's true. That is an important time to prune. But it's not the only time
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There are a couple of reasons you might want to pull out your pruning shears right now in early fall
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So today I'll be t my blackberry bushes now that the harvest is done
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And that's going to set them up to grow really well next year. There are a few different goals when you prune blackberries in the fall
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versus when you prune them in the early spring. The main goal this time of year is to get rid of all of this dead growth that's left over from the growing season
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When you prune at the end of winter or early spring, you're really just trying to influence the shape of the plant
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the way that it grows, the way it branches out, so that you can get the biggest and best harvest of blackberries that you can
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And if you're interested in learning more about spring blackberry pruning, I do have a video on that, and I'll be sure to link to it
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But here in the fall, all we have to really do is get rid of all this old dead growth
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So when the blackberry plant is done fruiting for the season, all of the canes that had fruit on them just die
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They're done. They did their job. So you can see behind me, the growth just gets really brown and brittle and is very clearly dead
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So that makes it really easy to see what it is you need to cut and get rid of
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So that's the main goal of fall blackberry pruning. The other goal, honestly, is just to make it look better because I can't look at this all winter long
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Thank you This is the final result my trimmed blackberry bush
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As you can probably tell, I didn't just get rid of the dead stuff
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but I also trimmed a lot of the length of these green primocanes that are still here
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These are the ones that are going to grow in fruit next season. And where I live, we have a very long, warm fall
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So my blackberry bushes are going to still be growing for several months before they go dormant
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So I really did have to trim them back quite a bit. So if you live somewhere in a colder climate, you're probably not going to want to trim your primocanes as aggressively as I did this time of year
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You want to make sure that the pruning wounds have a chance to heal before frost sets in
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So know when your first frost date starts and you want to prune at least about six weeks before that
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I actually may end up t these even more in a few weeks because I have plans for my blackberry bushes
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I'm going to be transplanting them to a slightly different location. I haven't been happy with where they're located
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So if you're interested in seeing how to do that, I am going to make a video on that when it gets a little cooler
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and I can more safely transplant these big mature blackberry bushes. T your blackberry bushes in fall is the simplest and most satisfying fruit gardening job that there is, in my opinion
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It's instant gratification. You make one small change, and your plant looks immediately better
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and you know you're doing something good for the plant that's probably going to get you better fruit next year
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So get out there, do your fall blackberry t, and if you need more details, I'll link to an article on thefruitgrove.com
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that explains all about blackberry pruning throughout the year
