Bad soil for my blackberries?

[Gardener123]

Not that I know the make up of my soil, but my blackberry bush is 4 years old, and we get tons of berries, but they are never sweet. I do wait for when they should be ripe. I am guessing my bush had 500 - 1000 berries, but almost everyone of them was inedible.

Thoughts?


Or maybe it is just the genetics of this particular bush?

[applestar]

See if what I posted for another member might apply to your situation as well --

Subject: Breaking Laterals on Blackberry canes

I have Triple Crown variety thornless blackberries. I have found that they need to be COMPLETELY black to ripen to that incredible blackberry flavor. If there is any red at all I wait for another 1/2 day (if morning, then late afternoon, or if in the afternoon until next morning)

Typical of most berries, the ripe ones will fall off easily into your hand - if you have to tug at all, they are not ready.

I'm not sure what you mean about black ones turning purple -- When the berries are in the shade they could look darker. Also there is the classic "berry picker vision distortion" -- The first time you go through picking, you pick all the blackest black ones (or reddest red, etc.) then you do a second sweep for any you might have missed. But since you already picked the blackest ones, the darkest of the remaining ones look blackest when they are in fact NOT -- you rejected them in the first sweep. This can happen if birds have picked the ripe berries before you came out. Do you have them protected?

[Gardener123]

A belated thank you......