Blackberry harvest

KxMx

How are everyone's blackberry harvests going?
I live in east england and it was exceptionally dry in spring.
I kept up watering my mature blackberry (approx 12 years) but there wasn't as much new growth as I usually get. Usually I take all the dead leaves and wood out late winter and it goes from bare bones to an explosion of growth.
Consequently, a very poor harvest of fruit. I've had maybe 20 lovely berries and not sure I will get much more, those remaining are very small and haven't finished ripening before starting to go off.
Leaves look healthy.
I'm wondering if it's just a bad year or that I wasn't diligent enough in watering considering the weather. I have learned from previous years too little water means a poor harvest, I thought I had done enough but perhaps with the dryness and covid 19 distractions I just didn't. 

Davesnave

According to local radio, wild blackberries are exceptionally good this year in the West Country. I think there is bound to be some variability considering the different weather across the country. Your 'wet' would be relatively dry here!

Farway

Mine was much better this year, we had rain at just the right time to swell the berries, followed by lots of heat to ripen them

harvest is just about over now with those left starting to go mouldy

carly

Funnily enough our cultivated blackberries haven't had their best year, but I'd put this down to lack of management of the new canes last year due to being away at the wrong time. Meanwhile the wild berries on the canal towpath are having their best year ever. Yesterday I picked 3kg of plump juicy berries in less than one hour. Sadly they have thorns and the garden ones don't. 

twopenny

I tried the ones growing behind my fence as anti vandal/wildlife friendly and they are big and juicy but flavourless. Shame.

I've picked up some free cooking apples today and I'm to go on the moors tomorrow to look at the wild ones. There are several varieties of bramble there so it's a matter of sampling to find the real blackberry taste.

Soot2006

Fantastic  harvest in the SouthEast. Huge, juicy, and very sweet this year.

gamston

the wild ones near me are small and most are not ready yet (nth notts), hopefully after the rain this week they will stay to grow

VoucherMan

I think it's still a little early up here in Lancashire, although I have been out a couple of times and picked a few. The first batch went towards a large blackberry & apple crumble, and taste very good. The rest, which are hopefully just as flavourful, have been frozen & bagged.

KxMx

Thanks so much for all your comments. 
I am definitely aiming to try harder with watering next year once it starts spring growth.
Perhaps I was watering an amount which normally with rain would have been fine but we had none at all for about 6 weeks and it was warmer than average too.