Asterina Thornless Blackberry Plants

Rubus Asterina Blackberry Bushes

Asterina is a great blackberry if you're looking for a long season of large, juicy, sweet and easy to pick fruit. The thornless stems make life easy, an advantage for both adults and children who are fans of blackberries, but not of the prickly foraging. This variety has good disease resistance too. The berries ripen from pinky red to deep midnight black, and are sweet even when not fully ripe. They're perfect for eating straight off the plant, warmed by the sun, or they'll keep well for a few days once picked. Freezing is also a good option. Use them to make jams, crumbles, jellies, pies or bakes, or add to savoury dishes – they're gorgeous playing a starring role in a rich buttery sauce for game or venison. The flowers are pretty in their own right, and will attract plenty of pollinators in summer.

This variety is a tall one, reaching around 2.5m in height, and really vigorous, so it's not a good choice for a tight spot. For smaller varieties, browse our blackberry range here.

Features

• Height: 2.5m
• Fruit: Large, purple-black
• Taste: sweet
• Use: cooking and eating straight from the plant
• Picking: Aug-Oct, late-season blackberry
• Freezes well or eat in a few days
• Thornless
• Spacing: 4m

Growing Asterina Blackberries

Blackberries do best in well-drained but moisture-retentive soil, ideally with a bit of acidity, in either full sun or part shade. Plant shallowly, certainly no deeper than the original soil line of the plant, in autumn or winter, leaving generous space between plants – around 3-4m. Then stake well.

Asterina is a really vigorous grower, so you'll soon have plenty of fruiting canes to pick from. When they've finished fruiting, in mid to late autumn, cut down the fruited canes then tie in the new ones to horizontal wires between the stakes. Mature plants will need a little extra pruning to keep them tidy, so it can't be called low maintenance.
If you want to grow something alongside your blackberries, try tayberries, raspberries or loganberries: a whole summer pudding in the kitchen garden.

Did you know?

A Swiss variety, bred from Chester and Loch Ness.

Botany geeks may know that the blackberry isn't, in fact, classed as a berry but an aggregate fruit, as it's made up of many tiny 'drupelets'.