The new canes cannot be affected until they fruit next year and a new generation of mites attack. Try some of the control measures at UC Davis linked above or other measures to lessen your mite population. Of course there could be mites already hiding out on the new canes; nothing for that until they emerge to do their duty next year. Certain beneficial insects can eat mites.

I started my berry patch last year around June with WOW Black Magic plants here in Orlando, FL. Zone 9. WOW is a mature plant being sold by a few online companies. I also planted Nachez, Prime-Ark 45 and Triple Crown. The Nachez and Prime-Ark 45 plants only fruited a little due to my late start. The Black Magic grew quickly and started fruiting by August. The plants continued to flower and fruit through our FL winter. The early fruit was a nice size and got larger as we got into our mild winter. I have actually picked berries each and ever month through the winter and picked some on March 1st. I am talking a few berries here and there. I think the plants have not figured out their cycle yet here in FL. Most of them have lost their leaves over winter but some continued to grow. They did develop buds during the winter and in the last week they started opening up and flowering. Looks like I will be having a nice crop of blackberries. My other 3 plants show buds, but have not opened up yet. Just the Black Magic so far. I had contacted John Clark when I ordered the Black Magic plant and he said that some places are selling them. So that eased my concern. Then in early July I read a patent was applied for on the APF-77 Black Berry plant. It did not call it Black Magic. When I looked a the patent photos it definitely looked like the plants I have that were marketed as the Black Magic(APF-77). Over all I am very pleased with the Black Magic here in FL for 2 reasons. It seemed to handle our summer heat and because of our mild winter continue to fruit pretty much all winter. I received my 10 TC Prime-Ark Freedom plants from Nourse Farms and planted them on February 28th, 2014. Placed the order back in October. They still do not list them on their website. You would have to call and order them. I hope they are as productive as the Black Magic. Supposedly they fruit earlier and have a bigger berry. It is a very promising plant. Can't wait to see.

The pot is about 2/3 full, but its a mix of clay dirt and vegetable potting soil, ive been making sure to keep it moist but should i just switch to putting it straight in the ground? I was just worried about being able to contain it so i put it in a pot.

I would have to say no. I grow a lot plants both in the ground and in pots. Restricting root growth will make for somewhat small plants. How much smaller of course depends on the size of the pot and the variety. But I do not find any plants fruiting earlier in the pots to the garden. I find, the earliness is more varietal. Things that made your grandmother successful are probably a couple things. One, she grew a cherry tomato. Many cherry tomatoes are early. They are also much better at producing fruit under adverse conditions. Two, pots will have warmer soil(my eggplants love being in them!)and if your growing conditions are cool, anything to keep the soil warm helps.(Oh, and I use black fabric mulch in the garden which keeps the soil warm out there.) Another possibility is your plants started out with too much nitrogen. That would cause a lot of growth without fruit production until later as you described. I do not know this fertilizer you mentioned, but you saying they were well fertilized makes me wonder if it is too much for tomatoes. Remy