Try growing boysenberries if you love loganberries, blackberries and raspberries.
Boysenberries are hard to find soon after harvest, so you will only find a few in grocery stores. Therefore, if you enjoy boysenberries, growing them in your garden is essential.
Growing boysenberries is similar to growing other berries like blackberries or raspberries, but the resulting fruit is unique. From May through about the middle of July, boysenberry shrubs bear fruit with enormous, sugary, papery, juicy berries.
Tips for planting boysenberries
Boysenberry bushes can be trained to grow vertically rather than horizontally. This not only makes maintaining the berries easier, but it also frees up a lot of valuable space. You should get the garden ready and put up the trellis first.
- Find a spot that basks in the sun for at least six hours daily. In hotter climates, the ripening berries may benefit from partial shade in the afternoon.
- To improve soil quality, dig to a 12-inch depth and use aged manure or organic materials. Check soil drainage and add perlite or sand if necessary.
- Put up the trellis or lattice so the bramble can use it to climb. You can plant boysenberry adjacent to a fence if it receives full sun during the growing season.
- You can plant the boysenberry cane in the ground once the ground has thawed at the end of the winter. The optimal time to plant a bramble is before it emerges from its winter hibernation.
- Prepare a hole with a depth of 12 inches and a width of 12 inches to house the young boysenberry bush’s root ball.
- Use aged manure to fill the hole. Combine the soil you removed from the hole with the manure.
- Check the sapling’s roots for damage once you’ve carefully removed it from the package or pot it arrived in.
- Then, once the plant is upright, fill the hole with the manure and soil mixture and spread the roots to fill the bottom of the hole. Force any air bubbles out by packing it tightly.
- Maintain a moist soil environment around the sapling until new growth appears.
- Plant many boysenberry brambles with a five-foot separation and support them with a single, long trellis for every 2 bushes.
Ways to Plant Boysenberries
Because boysenberry is a hybrid, growing it from seed isn’t advised. The soil is too acidic for authentic boysenberries to thrive. It’s impossible to get a replica of a hybrid plant from its seeds.
Instead, there are four methods available to gardeners for multiplying these berries.
- Make a clipping of the roots
- Pluck a piece of the mother plant to propagate
- Pick up a small plant from a nursery
- Dormant bare-root planting
Whichever option you choose is entirely up to you.
For best results, space multiple boysenberry plants at least 2 feet apart.
Put the plant in the ground at the same level it was at the nursery. After digging a hole large enough to accommodate the transplant’s root ball, you can fill it with dirt. Inject water directly into the ground to assist the plant’s roots in taking hold.
How to take care of boysenberries
- Apply mulch to your plants
You should use mulch around any new plants. Mulch, such as wood chips, prevents weeds from growing and helps the soil retain moisture. That lessens the frequency with which you have to water.
- Trim After Harvesting
Once you pick the berries, you can prune the plant. The time for pruning is late fall to early winter. At this time of year, some plants enter a dormant state.
- Fertilize the Plants
Apply 20-20-20 fertilizer to the shrubs in early spring. After that, fertilize every 4 weeks.
After working the fertilizer into the soil, spread a second layer of mulch over it.
To prevent the spread of disease, it is important to always use clean garden tools. Cut back any overgrown or diseased vines while leaving the fruit-bearing ones alone. Woody, fruit-bearing vines increase yields in subsequent years.
- Keep the Soil Moist
Never allow the soil to dry out completely if you want your boysenberries to thrive. Plants do not tolerate drought well.
The plant’s bud and berry production depends on how moist you keep the soil. Water frequently, but avoid soaking the foliage and the soil. Diseases and decay set in when leaves become wet.
A weekly watering of 1 to 2 inches is ideal for all plants. Put your finger one inch into the soil to test the moisture level. It needs watering if the soil is dry.
Best place to grow boysenberries
Moist soil is ideal for growing boysenberries. Boysenberries aren’t drought-tolerant, so you must always moisten the soil.
The presence of moisture helps with the development of Boysenberry buds and berries. Make sure the water reaches the soil when you water, but don’t drown your plants.
How to treat boysenberries in winter
Mulch:
Mulch, such as small bark chips, lawn clippings, straws, pine needles or straw, should cover the boysenberry plants by at least two to four inches.
Mulch shields plant roots from temperature fluctuations in the soil. It also helps reduce soil erosion due to heavy rain.
Apply it in the fall after some hard frosts have set in. The recommended depth for straw is 8 inches, whereas the suggested depth for other mulches is three to four inches.
Fertilizer:
Boysenberries should not be fertilized after late spring. Frost can easily damage fertilized new growth, which is delicate. You can fertilize boysenberries only in the early spring, before new growth appears.
Additional Boysenberry Winter Care
Rabbits enjoy wintertime boysenberry cane chewing. If this is a problem, you can use chicken wire to enclose the plant.
Is boysenberry annual or perennial?
Boysenberries are technically not berries at all. This is an aggregate type of fruit comprising numerous small fruits called druplets. These plants only produce fruit on canes that are 2 years old, despite having perennial roots.
A bramble is a dense tangle of arching stems formed by mature plants left unattended. Trellises are highly suggested for blackberry growers who want to keep their vines under control.
Time of year to harvest boysenberry
Since fresh boysenberries are so easily bruised, you won’t find them at many grocery stores. Due to its fragility, handle the fruit carefully during harvest to avoid damage.
Dark purple berries can be gathered in May in warmer climates. July and August are prime seasons for berry harvesting in colder regions. Pick the boysenberries before they rot on the vine if the late spring weather is particularly warm.
You can harvest Boysenberries by picking them off the plant and placing them in a tray or basket. Boysenberries have thin skin and can easily be bruised, so avoid stacking them in dense layers. Before using, refrigerate them.
Place them carefully in a colander and run water over them to clean them. You should dry the boysenberries in the colander for a full day. Use a paper towel.
It’s ideal to consume fresh boysenberries as soon as possible. As soon as a few days have passed, they will begin to spoil.
If you want to retain them for a longer period of time, you may freeze them and use them in winter desserts like jams and pies.
You can store frozen berries for up to 4 months in a plastic bag. Boysenberries can last for up to five years if you dry them. The shelf life of jams is 12 months.
Freeze-drying them could be the best option for long-term storage. If done properly, freeze-dried boysenberries can be stored for up to 15 years.
Conclusion
Boysenberries, while not the easiest berry to cultivate, are well worth the effort. This mixed fruit does not resemble a typical raspberry but a trailing blackberry.
Boysenberry canes can produce one quart of berries per linear foot for up to ten years. It only takes a few plants to produce a large harvest of berries because each cane can reach 15 feet.