The curse of the blackberry

Yesterday, Anna and I spent time masculating what is known as our blackberry patch. Thank God the blackberries are thornless. It was a tangled mess that reminded of my wild teenage hair that I used to let grow long back in the day.
It was my fault to let the patch go to such extremes. I haven't given it a good pruning in two years. Frankly, I had become indifferent to it. But given that we have had such a mild winter here in New Jersey this year, I had some time and the motivation to get out and clean it up.
The patch is four years old. It has produced some beautiful fruit in spite of my inattentiveness. I shouldn't be surprised. Blackberries are indestructible.
Ironically, blackberries are the last link to my great grandfather Ciro, who started the farm in 1911. He grew what we called black diamonds. Black diamonds were all over that farm in dark corners and on along the roadway when I was a child, courtesy of the animals and birds that ate them and then deposited the droppings along the way.
I am told that my grandfather also grew them because they sold well. But the nature of the plant, with its nasty thorns, finally got to him one day and he pulled them all out because he got tired of them scraping and scatching not only him but the rest of his family, including my mother, who was a child then. So the blackberry lived on as a wild plant around the farm and still does in spots.
Some of my earliest memories are of my grandmother taking me for a walk down Landing Road and me picking the blackberries to eat. I couldn't have been more than 2, 3-years-old.
One day about four years ago as I was getting into this heirloom thing, I had the idea that I was going to take the wild plants and cultivate them into a patch that we could use for the markets. That's when Dad stopped me and said, "They raise them thornless now. Why don't you just buy a few plants that way and raise them."
And so yesterday I was thankful for that suggestion as we hacked our way into shape the plants for this year's crop.
I have read many ways to prune blackberries and keep them. But I have found that appealing to their wild nature, I prune back the good canes to knee's length, cut out the dead wood and let them go. Grandpop used that method on the raspberries we used to grow and so that is what I have been doing. Some berry person is probably shaking their head but you know what, blackberries are what they are - persistent when it comes to survival. So we shall see what comes of it.
The day was chilly and we had some wind but for a late February, it wasn't too bad. Anna and Dad pulled the remainder of the cabbage, broccoli and Brussels Sprouts that were left from last season. Amazingly, the Brussels Sprouts were still growing with tiny balls that were ready to be picked!
That parcel will be worked into a fallow field this year with some sweet clover to be planted for soil enrichment.
I give Anna credit. She worked hard and did not complain which is what most 13-year-olds would do. But Anna is like me in that she is apt to be a pleaser. So she stuck to it for four hours of work. In the long run it will do her body and her mind some good.