Blackberries have been a part of my garden for over 25 years. The first few blackberry canes we got from our neighbor from Germany, it was the first thornless variety that came to Croatia. They weren’t even sold here, people went to Germany to buy them and we managed to get a few canes and they have been growing since then. From those couple of canes, we managed to propagate blackberries and now we have two long trellises that give us up to 60kg of blackberries a year, depending on the weather.
But our “trellis” is slightly different than the normal ones. We grow our blackberries like “brajda”.
“Brajda” is actually a special way of growing grapevines, typical for eastern parts of Croatia and Balkans in which we form a grapevine pergola from only one plant.
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| Brajda made with one plant |
Over the years branches are tied to the wire and they are left to become woody, forming vine trees. Every year the selected few branches are tied to the next level(wires usually have 5-7 levels). The annual branches are left to produce fruits and then cut down, but the main vine branches are left alone.
Once the main branches reach the top level they are taken to the other side, forming a tunnel or a pergola depending on the preferences. It takes up to 15-20 years to form a perfect “brajda”. But, once the brajda is formed the plant requires almost no maintenance, except for the cutting of the excess branches. Almost every old house in eastern Croatia has a long “brajda” in front of the house, which gives natural shade during the hot summer days.
Since the blackberries aren’t perennial plants and their canes die after 2 seasons at best there is no way to make an actual “brajda”, but we used the technique of making it to control our berries and so far it has been working perfectly.
Canes that grow in the first year are secured to the place where they will be needed and left to grow to the height they want. Usually, blackberry canes grow from 1,5m to 2,5m depending on the year and the amount of rain we get, if they get too tall we cut them to a height that is tall enough so that the wind doesn’t damage the plants.
In the early spring, before the canes start forming buds, old canes and branches are cut down, freeing completely the wires and the last year ones are tied to the wires. This is a very delicate job that is usually done by my dad for two reasons: canes are very delicate and can easily break and it takes some hand strength to bend and tie them to the wires without breaking.
The tied main canes will then form leaves and small flower/fruit branches. Fruits will be visible all the time, they can be easily harvested and will ripe sooner.
The only problem with this kind of growth is that fruits need to be harvested almost every day once they start to ripen. If left longer they will turn white from the sun, but if there is no sun or the temperatures are below 30°C fruits will stay black for 3-4 days and there will be no need to harvest every day.
Another plus of this kind of growth is that there is no need to bend too much to harvest fruits or to look for them. The height of the fruits can be set to the preferred height, or, like in my case the lower branches can be harvested from the backside of the trellis which on a downhill garden is much lower than the front side, making the first level easily reached.
This way each cane will give more fruits than just being tied to the wooden pole which is one of the main reasons to grow berries- lots of delicious fruits.
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