[VickyR]

Hi all

Have a marvellous raspberry patch on my inherited lotto.  Have gratefully read all the advice I could find on here about how to prune the different type.

Clanger of the day...

Any foolproof way to distinguish varieties?  When would you expect summer varieties to have finished by (I would have thought around August)?

All the bushes on my plot seem to still be productive - many at one end were putting out a few rasps around June/July but are still productive - if only getting four or five raspberries at a time ripe.  Does this sound like a summer bush?  

Others further down are more productive at present, with lovely clusters of fat raspberries - autumn definitely!


Whole plot was neglected last year so they are in need of thinning and pruning.  What would happen if I pruned them all as Autumn ones - I imagine it would be no raspberries for me during the summer months but would I kill the plants off?

Thanks for your help - I feel I can ask stupid stuff here, it's like the allotment confessional!
 
Vicky

[WG.]

Say three Hail Marys and wait for someone who knows what they are talking about.

[muntjac]

say three hail muntys and wait till they fruit  

[DD.]

The summer ones will have two different types of cane on them by now, One woody, on which you got this year's fruit, one green on which you will get next year's. The woody one's should, of course, be pruned out.

Our summer one are still producing the odd fruit so it does sound like you've sussed out the two varieties.

Worse case is to chop them all down, this is the correct way for the autumn ones, the summer ones should still put out the canes, but you won't get any fruit until the year after.

The not so worse case is to do as Munty suggest and leave them to fruit. You will have more pruning & cutting down to do after though.

(Does it sound like I know what I'm talking about?).

[VickyR]

Hooray!
Yes it does - thanks very much everyone.  I will have a closer look at them again tonight.  This is causing no end of delight to the wiser on our plot who've not stopped laughing since I did an unintentional swan dive into the canes, trying to grasp the last (and nicest looking) raspberry right at the back....

thanks again
vic

[DD.]

Hooray!
Yes it does - thanks very much everyone.  I will have a closer look at them again tonight.  This is causing no end of delight to the wiser on our plot who've not stopped laughing since I did an unintentional swan dive into the canes, trying to grasp the last (and nicest looking) raspberry right at the back....

thanks again
vic

If they're that wise - why couldn't they identify the raspberries!

[VickyR]

vegetable men the lot of them - fruit's too much trouble apparently.

[gobs]

The summer ones will have two different types of cane on them by now, One woody, on which you got this year's fruit, one green on which you will get next year's. The woody one's should, of course, be pruned out.

Our summer one are still producing the odd fruit so it does sound like you've sussed out the two varieties.

Worse case is to chop them all down, this is the correct way for the autumn ones, the summer ones should still put out the canes, but you won't get any fruit until the year after.

The not so worse case is to do as Munty suggest and leave them to fruit. You will have more pruning & cutting down to do after though.

(Does it sound like I know what I'm talking about?).

Partly,
probably it is just a typo, but it is obviously the autumn ones that should be throwing the canes and fruit out still.  these need cutting back in February about 1-2 inches from ground level, as they fruit on same years new growth, as opposed to the summer ones described above.
Also, you might well have a good old selection of them, as there are earlier and later summer varieties, which makes no difference to their treatment.
Autumn fruiting ones usually start end of July, by which time early summer ones finished.  My autumn ones are heavily cropping and floweering still, but they are well looked after, and so they should as usual produce till bad winter starts, here it is end November.
Just prune them at different times.