Knowing what you're missing can be a better motivator for putting in a new plant than thinking about it in the off season.
The raspberries and blackberries are succulent and prolific this season, and there are varieties that will stop the spreading, and provide fruit without thorns that can be put in this fall — or early next spring if you prefer the lower cost of bare root plants.
My favorite blackberry is thornless - truly thornless - produces large fruit, and is thornless. No more wincing during harvest time. Some are seedier, so I put at least part of the fruit through a food mill to get more concentrated pulp for jams and syrup.
There are a lot of varieties to choose from, but Columbia Giant, and Columbia Star are newer varieties particularly well suited for the Pacific Northwest.
I have an older variety of "thornless" (did you see the air quotes) raspberries, and while even toddlers can pick them with little more than scratches, the Canby and Joan J varieties are baby skin smooth and provide both good quantity and quality of berries. I will put some in this spring. Joan J provides early summer, AND fall harvest. Canby is a summer only berry.
The thornless blackberries don't spread except through tip drop rooting which is easy to control. And while most raspberries are plotting - successfully - to take over the world, dwarf and black raspberries stay put.
Pick out the proverbial sunny, well drained location now, and put down cardboard and leaves to kill the grass or weeds sufficiently for an October planting if you keep the area damp, or your spot will be perfect for spring planting after a long rainy winter.
I'm John Fischer with Good Gardening.
Pruning Addendum: Raspberries send up canes in the spring that will - with many varieties produce a crop of fall berries. After harvesting them through November, cut the canes back to four or five feet high, and you will get another large harvest on those canes in June and July. Once that harvest is done, cut out the canes, and wait - briefly - for the spring canes to produce a fall crop. Not all varieties are "double croppers." Canby, and many of the heirloom varieties grow a cane in the spring, and produce fruit on it the next year. Look for that characteristic when shopping, or check with friends if you choose to get plants from them.
