Planted Blackberries

My earliest childhood memory that I can confirm actually did occur and when it happened is when I was 2 years old (1974).  Our family flew to Washington State and went to Vashon Island to vist my Great Grandmother "Grandma Hoel"  She was my paternal Grandmother's mother. As the story goes in our family...I was outside (not sure why I was left outside by myself... I need to ask about that) and rang her doorbell. My mouth was covered in blackberry stains and I said "IIIIII've been in the berries again".  Here is what I actually remember from the trip.  I remember Dad playing cards with some kids on the airplane.  I remember sitting at the skating rink with "Uncle Jack" while others iceskated. I remember my Dad picking some blackberries with me and then telling me "that is enough".  My Papa died a few years ago but he also told me that sometime after that trip, they were talking about driving to see Grandma Hoel. I told him that he couldn't drive to see Grandma Hoel because she lived up in the clouds.  I guess I didn't quite understand the whole airplane experience.

Last year I started a row of blackberries but didn't have my irrigation in yet and  I also let them compete heavily with the weeds. A few of them lived anyway. Every year we pick blackberries at http://www.duckcreekblackberries.com/ .   It is in Sanger, Texas and is a great place to take the kids, have fun and get a lot of blackberries. Our favorite thing to do with them is make blackberry jam.

I now have the irrigation in and planned to put in enough to have a total of 20 plants.  I bought a few too many and so did Dr. Henderson (also starting a patch) which he brought over to me.  I now have 40 blackberry plants. Charles Kesseler from Duck Creek showed Dr. Henderson and I how he grows them and I'm hoping that in a couple of years we will have a lot of blackberries. At the recommendation of Charles we purchased our plants from:

      Cox Berry Farm
      1081 Hwy 818
      Clarksville, AR 92830

I planted Ouchita (O), Nachez (N) and Apache (A). I left in five plants from last year and the varieties are unknown (U). They are 2 feet apart and will have wire running on either side of them off of t-post that are 1 foot apart. Here is the layout:

Row 1: West to East       N N N N N N U (water faucet) U N U N A A A U A U A A A A
Row 2: West to East       O O O O O O O          w          O O O O O N N N A A A N

I planted 39 and then found one N on the ground that I hadn't planted yet. Thus the N on the end of row 2 .

Here is my beautiful helper Jessie Grace getting ready to plant.