Raspberry Growing Guide

How to Grow Raspberry Bushes

Key characteristics that apply to (almost) all our raspberry plants:

• They fruit very heavily.
• Their fruit has an extremely high water content.
• They completely replace their fruiting wood every year.
• They are very shallow rooted (so don't trample the ground around them! See story at the foot of the page*).
• They often send up root sucker shoots some distance away from the main plant. Dig down, tear them away from the root, and give them to a friend.
• A good raspberry bed can have a life of over 20 years. 
• Raspberries are best grown up a single post, or on parallel support wires about 2.5 feet / 75cms apart; there are some exceptions with quite short, sturdy stems, and dwarf varieties like Yummy are too small to need any support.

Raspberries are either "Autumn fruiting" primocanes (cropping on new wood that grew this year) or "Summer fruiting" floricanes (cropping on old wood that grew last year). The names "Autumn fruiting" and "Summer fruiting" can be slightly misleading, as the earliest primocanes crop in late summer, and the latest floricanes crop well into Autumn.

Raspberry Planting 

A raspberry bed needs thorough preparation.

• Being so shallow rooted, they cannot tolerate competition from grass and other weeds, which must be thoroughly removed.
• Because they bear large, juicy crops and have to renew their fruiting wood annually, the soil needs to be rich and water retentive. Incorporate masses of well-rotted manure and garden compost (except on heavy clay, see below).
• Leave plenty of room between rows: their roots grow very close to the surface, so walking close to the plants when weeding or harvesting is a big no-no.

How to plant bareroot raspberry canes

• Do not plant too deep! This is the cause of most newly planted raspberry deaths. Cover the roots with soil, keep them well watered, and they will sort themselves out.
• Plant your raspberry plants 60 - 75cm apart.
• Ideally, apply Rootgrow directly to the roots: only add blood & bone meal into the hole if you are not using Rootgrow.
• Mulch around (not over) your raspberries with well-rotted manure or compost, and top it up every spring to keep the soil fertile and to improve its structure.

Heavy clay is already fertile and water retentive, and can turn really soggy if you try to improve a relatively small area with organic matter, so clear the ground of weeds, but do not improve it before planting with organic matter. If you have the energy, it is fine to dig in grit, pea gravel, and some sharp sand (not smooth builder's sand), but this is usually not essential, unless you are trying to raise the level of the bed a few inches. Simply make a hole for each cane, pop it in, and replace the clay gently around the raspberry roots. Going forward, mulch as normal, and let the worms gradually mix everything together as nature intended.

Raspberry Pruning 

Instead of burning the old canes, bundle them up and stuff them in a hedge for insects and bugs to use for hibernation: ladybird heaven.

How to Prune Summer Fruiting Raspberries 

Summer fruiting raspberry canes, floricanes, fruit on one-year-old stems, as opposed to Autumn fruiting varieties (primocanes) that fruit on new growth (see below).

1. Each cane only fruits once, so cut them down to ground level after harvesting.
2. Once you have removed the old canes, examine the remaining stems that began to grow that year, which will bear fruit next year.
3. Select between four and eight of the biggest, strongest canes per plant and prune out all the others. This encourages the plant to put most of its energy into making fruit.
4. During winter, there will probably be new shoots that are longer than the support wires: either trim the ends off, or tie them down; either way will encourage more fruit. 

How to Prune Autumn Fruiting Raspberries

Autumn fruiting raspberries, primocanes, fruit on the tips of stems that grew up from the ground in the same year, as opposed to summer fruiting varieties (floricanes) that fruit on year old growth (see above).

They could hardly be easier to prune:

1. Do nothing in the year of planting.
2. Each year after that, cut all the stems down to ground level during winter, anytime before February. It is better to leave pruning until winter to give the harvested stems time to send their nutrients down to the roots for next year.
3. New growth will emerge from the base of the plant in spring and will fruit in autumn. Easy.

Autumn Bliss and Joan J are the two most popular Autumn Raspberries that we grow.

Fertilising Raspberries

After pruning, feed with a high potash (which is Potassium, the K part of the NPK ratio that you see on fertiliser packets) fertiliser around the plants, preferably an organic one because it releases its nutrients more slowly.

*My Grandfather was a serene man with a high tolerance for naughty kids mucking about. We could drop plates in the kitchen, knock over ornaments, track mud into the house, and generally make a mess, and his temper would not flare an inch as he guided us into better behaviour. I only saw him angry once.
I was greedily picking his raspberries from beds that, in my child-scale memory, stretched for miles. Picking them was permitted, but to reach some perfect looking fruit I stepped off the raised wooden planks that surrounded the bushes, installed there for the very purpose of protecting their roots - against clear orders never to do so. The next thing I knew, I was being hauled by the ear out of the garden and into the house, in front of several family members, where he explained to me that he still had his service rifle from the war, and he would not hesitate to eliminate the threat if he ever saw me near his raspberries again.
Years later, going through his former belongings, we found that service rifle: it was decommissioned, with the firing mechanism disabled, and a plug of metal welded inside the barrel. An uncle commented, "Well, it looks like he never would have shot you for trampling his raspberries after all", to which I replied "You are right: he would have bludgeoned me to death with it instead!".