Gary J Sibio
The photo was taken in my backyard in Chicago, Illinois. My wife and I tried to grow blackberries but this was all we got. We didn’t even get to eat them since some bird beat us to it.
I used a Nikon Coolpix P7700 with a Raynox DCR-150 (+4.8) multi-element close-up lens. I used ACDSee Ultimate 10.1 to adjust the lighting and boost the contrast.
Photo © 2013 Gary J. Sibio. All rights reserved.
Sorry to hear Gary. Try again
And I was about to ask, how did it taste? I think I should ask the birds. Hehe.
I was surprised though that you did this on a condo. Great job, still.
Thank you
Sorry to hear Gary. They take a few years to establish. I knew at once when I saw the shot that this was a first harvest for the plant without even reading. Try again, plant one on a border. After a few years there will be enough for you and the birds. Or you can try netting fruits and veggies you want to keep for yourself. I planted some on the banks of the river when I lived in Arkansas. Beware, they can take over.
Unfortunately I live in a condo and our back yard is about 5 feet by 25 feet.
Never tried growing them have always seen them wild.
I’m jealous. 🙂
I have so many in my backyard they are amazing once they start growing properly.
I can imagine.
i love
They are good but I have to admit I like strawberries better.
They are very tasty and useful. That’s why they like the birds very much.
My wife really loves them. Even though our attempt to grow them was unsuccessful, she buys them at the store or at farmers markets. Some of our pet lizards also like them
My entire rear boundary is a mix of blackberry and blackthorn (sloe). I like that I have access to lots of berries, but they are quite thuggish in habit!
Do they attract a lot of birds?
Sure they do! There are miles and miles of blackberry hedgerow in the vicinity (fields tend to be small here, just an acre or two, and all are bound with brambles). My wife has a gardening channel on Youtube and everyone remarks on all the birdsong in the background of all her videos 🙂
I have wild blackberries here – I have mixed feelings about them. They are tenacious.
How so?
When I arrived here there was a !0 foot x 90 foot mess of them along a fence. They had overgrown and partially buried a shed. They grow like crazy (you can almost see them growing) and I spent 100’s of hours each year barely keeping them in check. Eventually I had to dig them out to replace the fence. I dug down two feet and the roots were the diameter of baseballs. They’re gone now along the fence but they grow other places from birds spreading them. Like in the rose hedge. I may never be completely rid of them. The thorns on them have drawn a lot of blood. The wild bushes are little nastier than the varieties you can buy. There is even a thornless one.
Anyway, the amount of work they caused me is hard to forget. A friend of mine sent a YouTube time lapse video of blackberries growing – it was like a horror film to me.
lol True and funny.
Bummer that the birds beat you to it.
They might as well have them. The photo shows our entire crop.
I have a blackberry plant too and this year they did a lot of berries because it didn’t rain when the flowers bloomed and we cut the branches in spring.
How old is your plant?
We don’t actually have it any longer. Someone in our building thought it was a weed and pulled it out.