How to Plant Blackberry Bushes & Vines

Building the Trellis

• 1

  Place two 4-inch-by-4-inch wooden posts 20 feet apart along the row where the blackberries will be planted. Put the 4-inch posts at opposite ends of the row and add 2-inch-by-2-inch posts every 20 feet for a longer row of plants.

• 2

  Hammer the posts into the ground at least 2 feet deep. Place a wooden block on top of the posts and hammer the block instead of hammering the post directly, to prevent splitting. It's helpful to have two people for this step. One person holds the post in place while the other person balances the block of wood on top of the post with one hand and hammers it with the other. If the ground is too hard to hammer the posts in directly, dig a hole for the post and fill in around it with soil.

• 3

  Loosely staple two rows of galvanized wire from post to post to create a two-wire fence-like trellis. The lowest wire should be 2 1/2 feet off of the ground and the top wire should be strung about 5 1/2 feet from the ground.

Planting the Blackberries

• 4

  Dig shallow holes, deep and wide enough for the blackberry roots to fit into without being curled up, at regular intervals along the trellis. Spacing of the holes depends on the cultivar of blackberry and how it grows. Erect shrub-like and semi-trailing types should be about 3 to 4 feet apart, while trailing vine types should be spaced about 6 to 8 feet apart.

• 5

  Remove the first blackberry plant from its container and place it in the hole. The surface of the hole should be at the same level as the soil in which the plant was seated in the pot.

• 6

  Fill in the soil around the plant and gently firm it. For bareroot plants, make sure there are no air pockets around the root ball.

• 7

  Water the plant thoroughly to settle in the soil.

• 8

  Spread a small handful of balanced, slow-release fertilizer pellets around the base of each plant, a few weeks after planting, as spring growth begins.

• 9

  Weave the canes in and out of the wire trellis as they begin to grow in spring. Pinch the tips off of the growing canes when they reach 3 to 4 feet long to encourage branching.