Blackberry canes are flowering — fruit in 6 weeks

White five-petal flowers all over the brambles. Bees in heaven.

Field notes

The blackberry patch is white with flowers right now and loud with bees. Every one of those white flowers, if it gets pollinated, becomes a blackberry by late July.

Blackberries fruit on second-year canes. The whippy green canes coming up from the ground this year ('primocanes') won't fruit until next summer. The thick brown canes from last year ('floricanes') are what's flowering today.

After the floricanes finish fruiting, they die and we cut them out. The primocanes take their place. The patch rotates itself every two years.

The learning

What's actually happening

Why thorns

Thorns aren't there for us — they're there for deer and rabbits. A blackberry cane that doesn't get nibbled lives long enough to fruit. Thornless varieties exist, but in the wild, thorny canes survive better.

Floricane vs primocane

Most blackberries are 'floricane fruiting' — first year the cane just grows, second year it flowers and fruits, then it dies. Knowing the difference is how you prune without accidentally cutting off next year's crop.

An aggregate fruit

Each little bump (drupelet) in a blackberry came from a separate part of one flower. A fat blackberry can have 100+ drupelets, each with its own tiny seed. If only some of the flower's parts get pollinated, you get a lumpy or half-formed berry.

Words to know

Primocane: A first-year blackberry cane — green, whippy, no fruit yet.
Floricane: A second-year blackberry cane — thicker, browner, flowers and fruits, then dies.
Drupelet: One of the tiny bumps that makes up a blackberry or raspberry.

Your turn

Make your guesses

Enroll a kid to save guesses.

Guess

Count the flowers on one cane (or estimate). If 80% get pollinated, how many berries will that cane make?

Hint: One flower = one berry. Multiply flowers × 0.8.

Pick one

If we cut the wrong canes in winter, what happens?

Wonder

Why do you think blackberries grew thorns, but apples and peaches didn't?

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