Buster:

I am not sure this is the answer you are looking for, because I'm not sure what the question is, but you seem to have allowed plenty of room between your fruit trees to grow anything you like.

Raspberries, and especially blueberries, will require more attention to soil preparation and maintenance, particularly mulching, than your fruit trees. Pasture grasses and weeds cannot be permitted to grow up with the fruiting plants if you want them to do well. Grapes normally require construction of an arbor for support, and you do not mention any plans for that. Whether blueberries and raspberries are planted in rows or circles is a matter for you to choose, but grapes are normally spaced along arbors in straight lines.

If there are more specific questions you would like help with, by all means post them, but this is about all I can think of based on what you have asked. Perhaps someone else has a better idea of what you are driving at.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

If you are going to spray the fruit trees, Do Not plant any small berry crops anywhere under, near or around the fruit trees. Keep the berries, grapes, etc in their own area away from the fruit trees, and as Jellyman stated, they have different soil requirements and need different care.

Thank you guys for your help! Both of you answered questions I had. I do have a plan for the grapes. I am going to run 2 rows 10ft long or so and 5 or 6ft apart. I am using 2 pieces of cattle panel for a trellace. The cattle panels will be 5ft high and 10ft long. Is 5 or 6ft enough space in between grape rows? I know they will grow and grab onto anything they can.

Thanks Again!
Buster

Run one continuous row, grapes need air circulation. If I can envision what the cattle panels look like, having 2 panels that close might cut down on air circulation.

Anyone had any experience re the best tasting varieties of blackberries for the Albuquerque area? They will be planted against the east facing side of a block wall and I plan on trellises, so erect or trailing cultivars are both fine. I bake a lot, so taste is my primary consideration, but it has to survive here. I think an earlier variety would probably be best, as late spring freezes happen often, thought the wall will mitigate the temperatures.

Julie:

When you have a new subject, you are eligible to start a new thread, and assign your own subject. Click "Post a Message" at the top of the page. Otherwise, things can get a little confused.

I see no reason why trailing blackberry varieties like Doyle and Triple Crown should not work well in Albuquerque, especially if you have the space and inclination to erect a nice trellis for them. These varieties need support, but, in return, they provide very high production per sq. ft. of space.

Danger of late frosts should not be a consideration, although, if you think about it, planting an earlier variety to avoid damage from late frosts is not completely logical even if there were such a thing as an earlier variety. In my experience, most all blackberries seem to blossom at about the same time. Remember, blackberries are biennials, and the canes must grow up and winter over before delivering a crop the following season. Then you completely remove the spent canes, allowing the next generation to grow and develop. Blackberries appreciate rich, heavily mulched soil conditions, which makes the canes much stronger and more fruitful. Wintering the primocanes should not be a problem in Albuquerque, as it is in more northern zone 5 locations and colder.

If you sat down a bunch of blackberry experts in a blind taste test, I doubt they could really detect much difference among modern cultivated varieties, assuming that all the berries were picked when fully ripe. And that is the key to full blackberry flavor and sweetness -- pick when the berries are past the shiny stage to the slightly dull, and when they come off the canes easily into your hands. Blackberries picked before this stage will be tart.

You can make dynamite pies and cobblers from blackberries, but they do have larger seeds than raspberries. For most of us, the seeds are not bothersome. Blackberries provide both useful fiber and anthocyanins if you like those.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA