Make Those Raspberries Last!
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November can be the best time to plant Autumn fruiting raspberries and bare rooted raspberry canes are on sale now and usually posted to you from November until next April.
Many people are put off growing raspberries because of the large amount of space and often small yields provided by Summer fruiting types. They also require tying in and can easily outgrow their allocated space if not kept under control. Autumn fruiting raspberries tend to have higher yields and are often more compact than their Summer counterparts. They don’t require tying in and can pretty much be left to do their own thing – except for the picking and eating of course! We’ve planted them at the back of a small flowerbed and they thrive there. This is all very well but who wants raspberries only in the Autumn?! Plus you need two different plots to grow both Summer and Autumn raspberries to ensure you have raspberries for as long as possible, which if you only have a smallish plot or smallholding means giving up twice as much space for one fruit type if you want to enjoy them for as much of the year as possible. You can freeze some types of course, but there’s nothing like a fresh raspberry picked straight from the garden. One very good solution to this that we have used for many years is to plant Autumn fruiting raspberries and after the first years crops, instead of cutting the canes right back down to the ground, we cut them to half the height they have grown to – usually they reach 5 or 6 feet so we cut them down to 3 feet from the ground. The 3 feet of remaining canes then fruit from around the following April/May onwards depending on the variety, whilst new canes grow up between them and start fruiting from around July. Over the past few years we have enjoyed raspberries from as early as April right through to the end of November, depending on the weather. We haven’t noticed any changes in the quantity or quality of fruit we get from the Autumn fruiting part of the plants and we get very high yields from both the previous years canes and this years. We grow Autumn Bliss raspberries at present and like them so much we’ve never got around to trying any other varieties. They taste great and they also freeze well. But there are many other varieties out there for you to try, including thornless ones such as Joan J that may be a preference depending on where your canes are going to be planted. So if you havent already try this tip, we hope it works as well on your smallholding as it does in ours. Have you tried this tip successfully or do you have other tips on growing raspberries that you’d like to share with our readers? If so please share your experiences using the ‘Leave A Response’ box below. Article by Rural Smallholdings Magazine |
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