Your favorite blackberries or raspberries?

dixie 2/20/2018, 8:51 pm

What are your favorite blackberries or raspberries for our zone?

**donnainzone5** 2/20/2018, 9:30 pm

What is your zone? 7?

**AtlantaMarie** 2/21/2018, 7:07 am

Dixie, I believe you are in Mid-South, zone 7.

I've been debating on both for quite a while, but haven't taken the plunge yet. Part of that debate for MY garden is heirloom vs. modern (& thorn-less) varieties. (I concentrate on heirlooms.)

You might want to contact your local Extension Service office to see what they recommend.

Mikesgardn 2/23/2018, 5:51 pm

I am in zone 7a, and I grew "Heritage" raspberries for a while. The planting instructions said to remove all wild raspberries within 500-feet, and it also said that raspberries don't like wet conditions. Well, there are wild raspberries on the adjacent public land, so I wasn't going to remove them. And the only open place I had left in my backyard was adjacent to a drainage ditch. I took my chances and had great harvests for a few years, but the plants eventually got diseased. But if I ever move, I will definitely plant raspberries again! (and do it the right way)

dixie 2/26/2018, 12:12 pm

Thanks, y'all. I posted in MidSouth, but didn't even think about adding zone 7, sorry. I grew thornless blackberries once & they were huge and plentiful, but the seeds were a definite problem. They gradually died out, though they were planted according to instructions. I also planted raspberries, but I put them too far from the house so they didn't get proper watering, so they are gone too. We are redoing our garden this year & I've got a good spot for them, but still haven't decided what to do about berries.

**AtlantaMarie** 2/27/2018, 5:23 am

Dixie, how did the thornless ones taste? And what kind of disease resistance did they have?

I keep running back & forth between raspberries, blackberries, loganberries & boysenberries. I know I can't have all of them.... Not enough space. But thornless would be a huge benefit!

farmersgranddaughter 2/27/2018, 8:51 am

My father has planted thornless varieties Apache and Arapaho. Apache blackberries are HUGE.

I'm planting blackberries this year. I decided to go with Prime-Ark Freedom. It's a thornless primocane variety. I chose this variety because a) I'm impatient and want fruit the first year; b) I don't like thorns; c) I've read that the berries and large and tasty; and d) it was developed by the University of Arkansas which is 20 miles from where I live so it should grow well here.

I plan to plant raspberries next year. At my previous house, I had planted a thornless variety of raspberries that I purchased from Gurney's. We moved the following year so I'm not sure how well they produced, but we did get some fruit the first year.

dixie 2/27/2018, 5:27 pm

AtlantaMarie, I made cobblers and jelly that had very good flavor, but the large seeds were bothersome. The seeds were much larger than heritage type blackberries. No disease problems that I remember seeing. They were HUGE, and may have been Apache, as that name sounds familiar. I ordered 2 mulberry plants from Baker Creek. I plan on keeping them in tubs so hopefully they won't be too much of a nuisance.

countrynaturals 7/17/2019, 10:46 am

AtlantaMarie wrote:You might want to contact your local Extension Service office to see what they recommend.

Well, DUH! I'm in the same situation, trying to decide what variety to plant -- never thought about calling our local ag folks for advice. Rolling Eyes

Thanks, Marie. I'm zone 9b, btw.

Our wild blackberries are small but tasty and the deer leave them alone. If we went with a thornless variety, would the deer figure it out? thinking

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