Comments on: Tasteless Blackberries?

By: ling

ling — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:15:51 +0000

I live on Vancouver Island and my thornless blackberry has gigantic juicy fruit on it, but they are ENTIRELY TASTELESS!!! I think the way they are cultivated lends to them being friendly to grow, but lacking in the o-so-desirable blackberry flavour. If you want flavour in your blackberries you need to tough it out with the thorney ones :(

By: tom | tall clover farm

tom | tall clover farm — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:28:06 +0000

I live in the Puget Sound region of Washington State, and I can’t walk to your mailbox without tripping over a blackberry cane (my legs look like I’ve walked through barbed wire). We have oddly dry summers and I’ve found the wild berries (which get no water) have better flavor than my thornless cultivars — that is until I quit watering them. Unless they are wilting, I don’t water them. It seems to help in producing a more concentrated flavor. This also seems to be the case for my grapes.

I’ve had good luck with Chester Thornless and Triple Crown and recently planted Loganberries and Marion berries which have a nice tartness along with the sweet.

Good luck and gorgeous garden!

By: pickle

pickle — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:32:37 +0000

We planted some thornless varieties in our hedge a few years back, they are thriving and produce lots of fruit. I was concerned at the time as I had read in a book by the knowledgeable Bob Flowerdew that cultivated blackberries weren’t worth the bother, and to stick with wild ones if you can find them (to pick, not dig up and grow!).
We’ve not found our thornless one to be tasteless, but the wild ones in the local fields are certainly more flavorsome.

By: Kath In Oregon

Kath In Oregon — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:18:48 +0000

Derek,
Nice to meet a neighbor. Do look into ‘Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast’ by Pojar and MacKinnon. It’s a superb identifier for our region. The situation with blackberries is actually the other way round. The Himalayan brambles are very good (the berries tend to be big and mostly tart) for jam. But the really superb ones which also grow where I live are European, called the ‘Evergreen blackberry’ with ‘deeply incised and jaggedly toothed’ leaves. They can easily be distinguished from the familiar rounded leaflets of the common Himalayan type. When the European type are fruiting, we eat them raw, as they are consistently sweet, huge fruits.

There are native brambles too which may be the ones you confuse with European types. They are definitely not so tasty.

By: Melanie Hindle

Melanie Hindle — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:09:11 +0000

rain rain rain

By: Veronica

Veronica — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 07:25:22 +0000

I’ve been away so haven’t logged on for a few days. All the comments have been about blackberries but your picture is of blackcurrants which are ripe now, blackberries won’t be ready for another month or so - very confusing.

By: Sally

Sally — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:52:29 +0000

I don’t know what has gone wrong maybe they are too early, never grown them, the wild brambes always taste lovely but they are in September usually. Maybe they need more manure or maybe it just the variety, see what happens next year.

By: jackie

jackie — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:41:13 +0000

there was too much rain or they were over watered when the flowers were out and they were being fertilized, this is what causes the fruit be tasteless. i would too try cooking them.

By: chicken-n-veg

chicken-n-veg — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:21:48 +0000

We’re in Wiltshire, not far from you, and I don’t think any of ours are ripe yet (or even nearly ripe). We have quite a few wild blackberries from brambles growing through the hedges bordering our garden. They usually have a very nice taste. I think perhaps it might be to do with yours ripening early, due to the recent mild weather, but not sure how you can avoid that ! Hopefully you have more growing to harvest in a few weeks time.

By: Jen

Jen — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 03:27:30 +0000

I’m sure you don’t need yet another answer, but I’ll add my two cents anyway! Maybe try companion planting? My companion planting guide doesn’t include blackberries as they’re a pest here (Australia) but I’ve certainly had more flavoursome strawberries thanks to some companion planting and mulching advice (strawberries love being mulched with pine needles because it makes the soil more acidic). Perhaps another nearby plant or a different mulch will help.