Blueberries are ideal for containers.. They need acidic soil, which is perfect environment to make in a container.. Get varieties that pollinate eachother... Grapes - need trellis, vines.. From my understanding, you can get the vine as short as 3-5 foot or as long as 20 ft... Rasp/blackberry - a trellis would contain thm very nice, a heavy layer of mulch would do great, and just mow over the extra runner.. With a trellis you can keep them contained to a small, certain space... $2.50 for a plant, good deal.. But a few of each.. And if anything, sell them for $5 bucks... Or better yet, take multiple cuttin and sell each cutting for a few bucks.. There's always money to be made, if your creative.. Joe

Mark, I second Glenn's recommendation of Triple crown blackberry. They taste great, have no thorns and are highly productive and disease resistant -- probably the most productive fruit in my garden. Like Glenn's, mine have gone berserk with fruit this year. Blackberries need to be trellised and pruned. I have a twenty foot row, with two 4X4 end posts with two wires stretched between them, one a few feet above the ground, the other about 5-6 up. I then tie the canes to the wires as they grow. Some people get into weaving the canes horizontally along the wires as they grow or separating next year's canes from this year's fruiting ones, but this is all too much work for me. You definitely do not want to weave growing blackberries through a cage or mesh as you might do with tomatoes. You will also need to space your blackberries out a bit. Mine are probably a bit too close, but I would say 3' between plants would be a good minimal distance. They will send up new canes each year, on which next year's crop will be produced. You prune off the old canes after the harvest -- some do it in fall, some wait until winter or even early spring. I am less big on Fall gold raspberries. I have had them for three years now, and this will be their final year. They are pretty productive and very vigorous plants, which in the case of raspberries means they are very invasive. If you plant them in your raised bed, they will end up taking up the whole raised bed in a few years unless you work hard to prevent it. They are delicate and very sweet tasting raspberries -- some like this, others find them a bit cloying; I tend to the latter view. Their main advantage, I think, is that they produce in fall at a time the birds and insect pests are not interested so don't require netting. (I have to net my blackberries to keep off the birds.) I have not grown black raspberries, but I believe their culture is similar to that of blackberries. I'd check out from the library Stella Otto's book "The Backyard Berry grower" for more information or go to the Cornell University web site and find their on line book on fruit growing. Sorry, I don't have a link offhand.

Mark I am not a proffessional by all means but I know most raspberries are fairly easy to grow and don't require special treatment. Unless your soil is clay or really poor, all you will need is to add some composted dirt or peat moss mixed with your own soil in the holes. Makes the holes 3 times as big as the root or root ball you have. You will need a fence or some sort of long sturdy support that you will twine the rasberry shoots as they grow. Plant one every 4 ft or more (they grow really fast once established) As for deers I have always had dogs so to me never been a problem. birds don't usually eat enough of the berries to cause real problems, I just share. perhaps your area could be bad in which case you can net all around (but that would be some pain to deal with, however it might help with the deer problem as well) the only reason I answered you is because there are so little activity in these forums I thought no one will. I am not an expert but I do grow raspberries. I am actually trying to find anyone interested in Success with house plant collection? thanks Have fun!

Native little wild blackberry often has the same 'white dust' on the new growth as the black raspberries. Just because 'all the sites' say a species has a particular characteristic doesn't mean that characteristic is going to definitively separate that species from all others. Species descriptions are maddeningly incomplete. And plants are variable.