Hi, everyone. Your friend Why Tea here. My wife and I do a bit of gardening, and between the two of us and her father, we've got over a lifetime's experience. She was raised on a farm in the Northwest, and I'm from the Southeast, so we've got a bit of range there. At home here we currently have blueberry bushes, strawberries, a ton of tomatoes (of course) and we're also doing cantaloupe and an entire bed of sweet potatoes this year.

Awesome man our blackberries and raspberries are just starting to ripen. About two weeks out. 300 plants!

Stopped growing tomatoes a while back on account of the stinkbugs

We have a huge blackberry bush, but we're going to rip it out, they are big and juicy, but even after several seasons, this variety just doesn't taste sweet. The raspberry bush hasn't ever taken off, unfortunately.

300 plants is serious. I've got acreage and want to fill it with blueberries and strawberries.

@Why Tea Hey there, thanks for doing this by the way.

Is there any gardening books you would recommend?

@Why Tea I love black berries! Do you know if I can grow them in a hot 100 degree climate like East Texas?

berries seem to grow best in the North East or at least to my knowledge black/blue/raspberries grow wild all over NY esp upstate

Can confirm, I see a shit ton of em where I am.

Well, raspberries won't do well, they have to be further north, but blackberries do fine here in GA. There are a number of varieties. It doesn't get quite as hot here, but they still do fine. Really well. I don't have to actively water them or anything. It may be too hot or too dry where you are.

The main thing is to make sure what you're trying to grow, as you asked, will work in your climate zone.

And be sure to get a variety that does best in that zone.

If there are different ones.

For blackberries, there definitely are: https://www.almanac.com/plant/blackberries

Bonus- blackberries grow like weeds. Very invasive, they love water

Just like passion fruit

Definitely a thorny weed!

@Nova check this one out: https://www.amazon.com/Mini-Farming-Self-Sufficiency-Brett-Markham-ebook/dp/B004ULMJ2C

Oh wow that looks useful.

Alright I'll have to check it out, thanks.

@texan- tx Looks like you're in Zone 8 in East Texas, and all the blackberry stock I looked at grows in zones 5-9 so you're good.

Thanks for the informative response @Why Tea

I'm trying to find a particular variety that will do well there.

I know they grow wild here

For example, this: ".A NEW thornless blackberry USDA cultivar called ‘Sweetie Pie’ was released that is resistant to disease, heat tolerant but tastes delicious. This cultivar, tested as MSUS119, came from a cross between ‘Navaho’ and MSUS29. MSUS29 is a seedling from a cross of [Humble x Brazos] x Navaho. ‘Sweetie Pie’ was selected at Poplarville, Mississippi in 1996. It was subsequently propagated and tested at McNeill, Mississippi, as well as in trial plantings in Louisiana and Arkansas. ‘Sweetie Pie’ grows vigorously and produces numerous floricanes, which are thornless and have a trailing growth habit."

I'd say if it does well in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, this will work in Texas : )

So see if you can find that. Bonus--thornless!

Thanks man I'll try and find some seeds online

The wild Blackberries grow to be as big as half dollars here

A picture from this year, they only got up to a little over the size of a quarter at best. Last year they were huge. Biggest I've ever seen

Our first year they were pretty bitter. These year they're much sweeter. We keep em netted now to keep the stink bugs off

Yeah those stink bugs are a nuisance

And for whatever reason they love hanging around blackberries

They suck the juice out of anything sweet up here including corn

Will fence lizards eat them?

There's not many predators for them. Wild turkeys cross bred with domestic turkeys for some reason can eat pounds of them, but their stink power makes them inedible to most predators.

@here does anyone know anything about growing mushrooms?

@Why Tea

Yes.