Growing berries from seed in containers

Peaceful_Warrior

12 years ago

I'd like to grow berries from seed in containers. I have space issues & must use containers.

The berries I am interested in are:

Blueberries

Strawberries

Blackberries

Raspberries

My questions are:

1) Which are the best to grow from seed?

2) Where is the best source to get organic non-hybrid versions of them?

3) Which are the best to grow in containers?

I'm sure I could get some help on the container part in the containers forum, but I thought that people with experience with fruit can shed some light on my situation.

Thanks

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Comments (5)

User
12 years ago
Peaceful,

I am curious, why do you want to grow them from seed?
Kevin Reilly
12 years ago
People do grow strawberries from seed, and strawberries do well in containers. Blueberries are good container plants as well.

Usually starter plants for berries are so cheap that people just buy them bare root or in tiny pots, including strawberries.
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Peaceful_Warrior
Original Author
12 years ago
@bamboo_rabbit - I grow organic & from what I've seen the organic plants are expensive compared to the ones that are not. Then, you have to do homework on the sources meaning of "organic" which is loosely used at times.

I grow veggies already, but fruit seems to be different. It seems that most fruits (except melons) are started from plants. I'm assuming people are growing from cuttings.

Is this a time & ease factor?
john_in_sc
12 years ago
Blueberries sucker from the roots - so you generally just chop off a sucker + some roots with a shovel.... Technically, they do grow wild, and are native to in our area... I have seen plenty of wild Vaccinium species, but never an actual "Wild Blueberry" with edible fruit....

They will do fine in a pot.

Where we are at - pick 2 "rabbit eye" type blueberries for pollination... Note that a "Rabbit eye" type blueberry is not a hybrid, but rather a species... where the named varieties were just selected for some particularly good fruiting and growing habit...

Blackberries are much the same in that they sucker from the roots PROLIFICALLY! Chop out a clump with a good sharp shovel and off you go!... Of course, the wild ones around here will also grow from seed just fine.... They really respond well to "Organic" cultivation...

Honestly.. I have about a dozen proper cultivated blackberries, but I have had far and away the BEST luck out of wild Blackberries that pop up under trees and my grape arbors from Bird droppings... I just fertilize them well.... They seem to be much more prolific and pest proof than the proper "Cultivated" varieties... They also taste great...

But.. Blackberries do get invasive fast... I need to go hack some out of my grapes before they get too large...

Thanks
User
12 years ago
Peaceful,

A seed grown blueberry is going to take many years to fruit and the resulting fruit is a crapshoot. If you were to buy 1 BB plant and take cuttings from it you could produce 100 plants from it very quickly and they would fruit in just a couple of years. Would that not be acceptable for organic?