Kitchen Garden Forum

What variety do the team and forum users recommend?

When I was young my mother cultivated "Himalayan Giant" which had a nice wild taste to it and was very productive. But, my world it had tough spines! And it was huge!
But that is 50 years ago (and it was probably 15 years old then).

Since them the plant breeders will have been busy, so what is a good option?

Obviously I could just get a wild bramble but hoped there might be something better.

This is going to replace a raspberry/blackberry cross I got on a KG special offer from a nursery whose name I forget which never really got going.

Sorry, taken this comment out.

Nothing better than a good old wild bramble. Grab your thickest leather gloves and start picking! The thornless varieties have been said to taste badly. In fact, my own thornless blackberry didn't even taste like a blackberry. They are sour, even when they are ripe. They are also harder to chew on. Correct me if I'm wrong. All wild blackberries I picked so far were absolutely delicious, not one exception!

I have a thornless blackberry gifted to me from the birds. It's totally in the way & spreading but actually has lovely fruit so trying to accommodate it! No idea of the variety, pretty big fruit but you have to check for softness as well as colour or as Elmigo says - tasteless if taken too early!

tasteless if taken too early!

How very true.

The perimeter fence on our allotment is/was covered in wild blackberries and wild risks until people started to cut them down,on our side fence we have one stalk that survived the amount of berries on it each year is amazing and taste great

Dear Stephen,
there have been lots of new introductions in the blackberry world and there are many factors that might influence your choice.
Thorny v thornless.
Early v late cropping period.
Vigour - some folks LIKE wading through the undergrowth with a machete like Indiana Jones at pruning time; me - not so much...
Flavour - some varieties are better suited to cooking with and others for eating fresh.
Fruit size and shape.

Two companies that do a lot of blackberry varieties are R V Rogers of Pickering and Chris Bowers.

If you know of a really good plant locally then you can take hardwood cuttings now of this year's growth. However this method does not work for the thornless varieties as they will grow thorns if done this way. Google it if you want to know the science behind this phenomenon - it's complicated.

Regards Sally Wright.

Hi
Thank you all for your contributions.
I am very sympathetic to a thornless (see my cooments at the top) and with plenty of gooseberries, I have enough thorns to be going on with!