Blackberries: Cutting back during the growing season will cause the remaining cane to branch out and that increases berry production next year. You can prune at any time to a size that is convenient for you. In some locations the canes will still be growing in the fall; pruning the main cane then will result in shorter branching or no branching.

Well, that all depends! How long are they, first? You can tip the laterals, which will then also branch...so, you can see how this will increase your fruiting area. However, if your planting is really dense already, I don't think I'd do that. You might end up with too much vegetative growth, which will limit air flow and result in more problems with fungal diseases next year. If you don't thip them, you'll definitely want to prune them back to 12-18" during the growing season. Most growers probably choose this method. Maybe take a small section and tip the laterals, and see which way you like it better next year.

Blackberries are pretty durable but always require refrigeration. If the conditions are right, you can always pick a couple days in advance w/no loss of quality. We try to harvest all berries in the evening and immediately put them in refrigeration after cleaning them. We try to presell as many as possible before we pick. Blackberries can handle transport from containers pretty well. We use plastic boxes strapped to us (we got these from Indiana Berry)so we have both hands free. When one is filled adequately, we just strap on another and keep picking. Our berries are well pruned, trellised, and thornless; so picking is pretty easy--altho we have reserved a few wild berries on our property. All of our berries are sold in recycled clamshells by the pt and qt--sometimes 1/2 pts as well. We also use gallon ice cream buckets. Some vendors use gallon bags and have no problems selling them that way. I personally would not do this unless the customer was going to process or freeze them immediately. Red raspberries and dewberries are extremely fragile. Black raspberries are a little hardier. We'll pick these at the last possible moment, pick in smaller containers,refrigerate, and sell ASAP. Almost all of these are presold. Then again, these are our favorite fruit. If there is an excess, we'll just freeze these up for ourselves. We do all of our jam and juice making in the winter when it's cold out and we have more time. Gooseberries, currants, blueberries, and grapes are pretty tough and can handle larger containers and keep very well if refrigerated properly.

It sparks a couple of questions. The plant will put out new canes whether or not the old canes are pruned. It looks as if I will be taking the canes that are already there from this year and bracing at about 6' high horizontally along the garage. I figure that I can continue to use these canes year after year, not unlike grape vines. It looks as if sooner or pater, I may have to clip these out and use new ones as teh central feed. It will be interesting to see how the new canes are produced. Since they are flimsy at best, I figure they will drop down. The new lateral growth of tip-pruned canes will be at random angles but does not grow "down" from the cane tip, but sideways from multiple points. In this case, sideways is up or down, no? Prune out old canes after harvest and tip prune new canes when maximum desired height is reached. In this case, maximum width. Are you going to attach the clips directly to the garage wall? That would require over 100 clips that would need to be removed and re-placed every year. I can imagine using no more than 6 clips as the one in the picture is held up, although sloppy, using only three. I never recommend training blackberries directly against a wall and ripe fruit will stain it. Go with the t-posts in the ground a couple of feet from the wall and attach canes to them and to each other. I can see your point but I can only imagine that the canes will grow against the garage anyway without considerable maintenance anyway. I am not all that attentive of a gardener in the first place so it is going to happen any way. Still, no one has indicated any method to actually hold the horizontal canes in place for support. I can use steel poles with some kind of wire to wood beam across but am still at a loss for actual attachments.