On a whim, I decided to try growing some raspberry plants back in 2003 for the 1st time, when first a client offered to let me dig up a few of her extremely spread-proficient red raspberries, which I planted behind my mother's house in this mostly open spot. These things sent out rhizomes like nothing I have ever seen, so that a new raspberry would pop up 6 feet away from its parent plant, just 1 year after the parent plant was planted. So they spread out all over this 40 feet x 20 feet area, and within 2 full seasons the original 11 plants I had planted had become probably 100 or more!

In the mean time I had also planted a few thornless, trailing blackberry plants I dug up from yet another client's home, which also spread out quite a bit over a couple years. They arent very sweet though.

I decided to try out Jewel black raspberries, so I found a place that sold black raspberries, which was hard 8-10 years ago, so I drove up and bought 2 potted Jewels. Unfortunately I had NO idea what black raspberry plants looked like then, and it turned out these 2 plants had been mislabeled, and werent even blacks to begin with, they were everbearing reds of some lackluster variety!

Then about a year later I bought 2 little boxes at Lowes that contained 2-each Cumberland black raspberry plants in these 16" tall boxes. They were very small, thin plants, but I planted 3 at my house, on the left side. Well, these 3 Cumberlands blew my mind over the next 2 years, as they became so thick that each would have 20+ healthy stems that grew up, over, and back down. But when they produced in the late spring, these 3 plants would fill a 10" wide strainer bowl with berries at least 2-3 times if I had made it a point to pick most or all of them, Unfortunately there were just so many berries, that most were left on the bushes.... It was crazy how much fruit production these 3 plants put out! They were symmetrical, and they actually looked good at that side front corner of my house, especially when their canes turned the dusty burgundy-red color in the fall and winter, even after losing their leaves they looked good, and I got complements from people who thought they were just ornamental plants!

I also grew a thorny blackberry plant with an Indian name that I dont remember, and this plant grew blackberries almost twice the size of storebought berries, even the large ones! These things were almost hand-fruit in size, and you'd eat them by taking 2-3 bites off them! They were also pretty flavorful and relatively sweet off the vine if you picked them at just the right degree of ripeness. They had big thorns, but the enormous berries made it worth it! I just dont remember which Indian name was the right one!

I grew 2 gold-orange types of raspberries(Anne I think), and gave 1 of 2 identical plants to a client while keeping the other for myself. I was forced to plant here's in the terrible rocky clay soil at their house, but planted mine in nice, mixed bagged soil. When they both started producing, the plant at the client's home tasted so much different and so much better than the one at my house that I was amazed. It was night and day, bad versus awesome! The only difference was her orange raspberry plant was planted in terribly hard, dense rocky clay, and mine wasnt!

I sold the house and lost all the berries. I still have some raspberries at my Moms and some blackberries. Tell us your best and worst berry stories?