Tidying the Raspberry Patch
I love raspberries.
My dog did too. She’d accompany me on a picking-adventure, and learned quickly to skip her own hunt and instead watch my hand reaching for the most-ripe berries. She’d dart in and lick them off the cane before I could shoo her away. That dog ate at least a pie’s-worth every summer, and I hadn’t the heart to tie her up to prevent her company.
My Grandma grew a huge patch on the farm of my childhood. Twice my height and long enough to jog down, she’d bake them into life-changing pies and mix them with redcurrants for sparkling jellies we all still tell legends about.
Mom dug up a few of those canes one year and transplanted them to our house in the country. We got a few seasons, but due to lack of care, they languished. They hated our hard clay soil and inattentive gardening, and eventually waned so small and scrubby that one fall they found themselves accidentally under the lawnmower.
The field-weeds did the rest of the work.
Now in my own garden, I’ve got a prideful patch that I tend with religious zeal. Not just reds, but purples, yellows, and burgundies. Plus some blackberries, tayberries, and boysenberries, just to keep their cousins close.
Though I’ll admit, as much as I make plans for pies and jellies myself, I end up more like my old dog; stuffed full of berries before my picking basket is even half-full…
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Raspberries are easy, but really flourish with a little routine care.
They love consistent moisture and plenty of nutrition, but loathe heavy, wet soil, which will usher in all sorts of root rots. Amend your soil with lots of compost, as well as some grit and pine-bark to keep it open and well-drained. A generous mulch of manure and pine-bark will also ensure cool soil, a steady supply of nitrogen, plus a slightly acidic soil pH, which they love.
Raspberries come in two “types” - Everbearing and Junebearing. Everbearers give you a midsummer and a fall harvest, whereas Junebearers give you one harvest (in June). This comes down to the issue of “fruiting wood”.
Everbearing raspberries will fruit on BOTH first-year canes (the fresh green ones that popped up this spring) and second-year canes (the woody brown ones that overwintered). The green new canes will fruit at their tips in the fall of their first year, then they’ll fruit all down the cane in June of their second-year. Then they languish, and should be taken out.
Junebearing raspberries fruit ONLY on their second-year canes. It’s a larger crop, generally, but it comes all at once, and then the season’s over.
Pruning becomes fairly logical at this point. You can, if you’re lazy, take out the “chore” of maintenance and turn your canes into “fallbearers”. This means you basically mow your whole patch to the ground every October after you’ve picked your fall crop (from the first-year canes). This means you’ll only ever grow “first year canes”, and get one autumn harvest every year. Much less productive, but it means you can prune the patch with a lawnmower in about 45 seconds, so…
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My recommendation is to grow everbearers and train a whole summer of fruit:
Beginning in October after you’ve harvested your autumn crop from the tips of the first-year canes, snip off the fruiting tips behind where all the fruiting branches were produced; this encourages the cane to flush out more next spring, and forget about apical growth (getting taller).
Then, cut out any missed brown-wood canes that have already gone through winter (heading into their second winter).
Come spring, all of the remaining growth will burst into leaf and start producing flower buds all along the canes, getting ready for the June crop (as they’re all “second year canes” now).
When the soil warms, you’ll also see all sorts of new green canes poking up and leafing out - these are your “first year canes”, which will give you your fall crop this year.
Once the new canes get a foot or more high, give your patch an inspection:
An overgrown, clogged, crowded patch will breed fungus and diseases like wildfire. Raspberries are great, but they can be sickly little beasts if you’re not attentive.
Observe where all your canes are, new and old: the old brown canes will be removed after the summer harvest, so plan for green canes to take their place.
Remove weaker, smaller, or slower-growing canes, and decongest areas that have too much growth to let airflow through. Try to think of the bush as a “ring” of canes - keeping the center of them more decongested. This will further improve airflow and reduce the spread of fungal disease.
Finally, stake/support/tie as the canes grow - train them into an open, flowing shape, giving you room to harvest and giving them room to breathe.
After your second-year canes fruit in June, prune them out - they’ll just languish and their production diminishes significantly.
Let the new first-years take the stage, ready to fruit in October and start the cycle again!