The Scoop on Raspberries: Maintianing for Optimal Harvest

My summer-bearing (closest) and fall-bearing (furthest away) raspberries before spring cleanup.

In my post on site selection, I explained the basic difference between summer-bearing and fall-bearing (aka: ever-bearing) raspberries and the importance of selecting your site carefully.  In this post I want to cover maintenance for both summer- and fall-bearing raspberries.  Raspberry maintenance is pretty simple, and just a little bit of time and energy spent in the spring will go a long way toward obtaining a larger fruit & more abundant harvest later in the season.

As with any plant, overcrowding will reduce production as the plants compete for water and nutrients.  I have not had a big problem with this.  My raspberries seem to naturally space themselves about 6 inches apart, but if you find your raspberries coming up closer than that, you will want to dig out some of the sprouts.  These sprouts can be replanted in a new location (on your property or someone else's!) or put into a compost pile for future fertilizer.

June-bearing raspberries with tops trimmed off

The canes of summer-bearing raspberries die the fall/winter after they have produced fruit.  These spent canes become a liability to next year's harvest immediately after they are done fruiting.  They consume energy that the plant could otherwise be investing in the canes that will produce next year, therefore it is in your best interest to cut the spent canes off at the ground after harvest is done for the year.  Early in the spring before the leaves break bud, you can trim the top 3 inches or so off the canes to encourage branching and thus a bigger harvest.

Ever-bearing raspberries with all canes cut off & this year's 1st shoot already starting

Fall-bearing raspberries can be handles two different ways.  I cut all of my fall-bearing raspberries off at ground level late in the fall or early in the spring every year.  I do this because I've read & I believe that I do get a better single harvest each fall.  The other benefits are, the fall harvest is it is usually in late August and into September and I'm less likely to need to protect the fruit from birds and insects, and also simplicity!  I don't have to figure out which canes are spent and which are this season's... they are all cut off every year!

The other fall-bearing maintenance method is like that of the summer-bearing raspberries, where the individual spent canes are each cut off after the midsummer harvest leaving the new canes to bear in the fall.  Because the raspberries have to invest energy into two fruit seasons, neither season is quite as productive as one.  The benefit of this concept is, if you have a cool fall or early fall frost, you will have already gotten some raspberries earlier in the year.  (I have eliminated this factor by having both summer- and fall-bearing raspberries.)

"Happy" fall-bearing raspberry canes can grow to be 3-5 ft tall their first year.  If you find your plants are pushing the 5 ft mark, you may want to trellis or stake them up in some way.  This keeps the fruit from weighing the plant down and shading others around it.  In the past I have staked up chickenwire around my everbearing raspberries that I can easily move when I need in to harvest, but I would love to establish some type of permanent 2 or 3 wire trellis/fence that would look nicer.

I hope you find this helpful.  If you have any comments or questions, I would love to hear from you.

Happy Gardening!

The Scoop on Raspberries: Site Selection

My raspberry patch

 We grow both summer-bearing and fall-bearing raspberries in our yard because some members in my family love raspberries almost as much as candy and I love having this treat around for them.  While one needs to consider carefully where they are planted, raspberries take little work or money once established, and produce a delicious treat that are expensive if purchased in the store.  Early spring (now) is the preferable time to establish a raspberry bed and it only takes a few canes to produce a bed as big as you allow it to spread!  We made a couple mistakes when we first planted ours, but a talk with the neighbor and a move later, we happily harvest raspberries every year!  I hope that by sharing my experience you will be able to avoid similar mistakes.

But, before I go any further I want to explain the difference between summer-bearing and fall-bearing raspberries.  Summer-bearing are most similar to their wild relatives, producing fruit mid-summer on two year old canes.  Fall-bearing (also known as ever-bearing) raspberries can produce fruit twice a year.  The new canes produce fruit the fall of their first year and then again the following year mid-summer.

I was both ignorant and in denial the first time I planted raspberries.  We initially planted 3 red & 3 yellow ever-bearing plants along the fence between my garden and the neighbors yard.  I knew that raspberries were a spreading plant, but for some reason I assumed that they would NEVER cross a fenced property boundary OR invade my garden... denial!  It didn't even take the full summer before they invaded both my neighbor's yard & especially my watered garden!

As I did a little more reading I found out that raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes, peppers and some other veggies are susceptible to the same diseases... ignorant!  The last thing I wanted was to have a potential ongoing disease issue in my veggie garden because I had raspberries too close, so we moved them to a new location along the fence (thankfully the above invaded neighbor was happy to harvest from the invaders, so we stayed along the same fence) and added a few canes of summer-bearing raspberries from my mother-in-laws patch.

Yesterday I noticed the first new fall-bearing raspberry shoot as I cleaned out and prepared the bed for this season.  Check out my post on maintaining your raspberries for optimal harvest for more information on raspberry maintenance.

Happy Gardening!