Winterizing the Front yard - The Berry Bramble

My brother Steven has a blackberry bramble in the back yard that they have not managed to tame, cut, goatify, or burn. It's origin is their neighbor's yard, but even so the bramble stretches the whole width of the backyard with it penetrating 5-10 feet in, in some areas. The only thing is that he has not been able to get a consistent production from the bramble and most years they don't even get a pint of berries. I would like to avoid this with my berry production.

Jed grew up in an area where blackberries roamed wild through the forest snatching up unsuspecting children and eating up errant livestock... or so he says. I was allowed to add berries to our property on the condition that I maintained them and kept them from taking over the acre. This I've been doing with our front boysenberry during the late fall/early winter time. The canes that had berry production during the previous summer die off and I'm able to cut those canes down to the ground and sort out the new growth that will produce berries the following summer. I'm happy with the growth we've had with our original boysenberry plant as it seems to double if not quadruple the size every year. The previous summer Ivan, Franky, and I were able to go out every day during June and eat handfuls of berries, honestly, I was tired of boysenberries by the time July rolled around and we were ready for apples and strawberries. But now I find myself craving berries again and so I spent New Year's day working on the front berry bramble. The boysenberry starts canes whenever the tips bury themselves in the soil and start up new roots, when I clean up the front I take these new canes and I move the to different parts of the property so that we can have more berries, a barrier around the property to keep the predators out and a nice green screen to keep busybodies from counting my chickens. The roots on these tips are fairly shallow and the plants are mostly dormant so it's all right to dig them up and move them to a new location provided you've cut them off from the main cane that they came from. This year I dug up about 37 new canes that I was able to then place along the fence line in the backyard. I hope they grow as vigorously as they did in the front.

As with last year, I've woven the berry canes along the fence line. The only change this year is that I transplanted the little grape that was near the Breaburn apple tree to a new location and moved some canes into that area to double our boysenberry bramble for the future. Jed mentioned that this year he would like to get more than just 4 berries. He only ate some when I would bring them into the house for him. I let him know that I was going to be at work, so the he and Ivan would be able to spend hours out in the front just eating berries. And as I greatly enjoy berries as well, I'll make sure to find the time either before I leave for work, or after I get home to sneak some berries off the bramble. After all, if I'm maintaining the berries it only seems right that I get to enjoy some of the sun soaked sugary goodness.