Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: AndyArch on February 25, 2016, 13:45
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Hi,
We have had our plot for a few years now but have done nothing with the inherited raspberry bed. We got a brilliant harvest in 2014 but then I cut all of the canes right down which I now know was a mistake :(- therefore our harvest last year was very poor.
What should I do this year in regards to pruning and when?
Thanks
Andy
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The answer is probably to ask you another question - when did your first year's raaaas crop? Summer and Autumn fruiting pruning is different!
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We must presume that they are therefore a Summer fruiting variety. These fruit on the new canes produced last year. They should really be pruned in late Autumn after fruiting, but you can do it now.
The normal instructions would be to cut out all the canes that have fruited and tie in the young canes that will fruit this year.
In your case they all grew new last year. Cut out the weakest ones to leave 3 or 4 canes per plant and tie them in. If the individual plants cannot be distinguished just leave a strong cane about every 6 inches.
In the Autumn cut out all the canes that fruit this year and tie in the young canes that grow this year. Just leave the strongest 3 or 4 per plant.
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Could I also suggest that a feed of Sulphate of potash plus a good mulch of something organic would help them along. I have used part rotted woodchip from my paths this year.
Hope you get a decent harvest this year!
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Just for fun last year bought a couple of the 99p shop raspberries, Malling Promise.
Grew them both in 12" pots.
From July to November we had bowlfuls of raspberries twice a week.
First week of feb I moved them to open ground, pruned in last week of November when stopped fruiting. Wierd thing is, have ended up with five plants now instead of the two, all nicely rooted.
Last few weeks they are all now budding all the way up.
Looks like quite an easy plant to keep going.
They were certainly an amazing crop, just seemed the more you picked the more they provided.
Will buy a few more from poundland as its merged into now, cant really go wrong at that price.
Did make me laugh, as a friend paid £19 each for two plants from a nursery and he got about 3 or 4 rapsberries on each plant through the summer and early autumn months and I had a look a few days back and they are looking pretty dead to me, pruned much as I did.
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Know this is an old thread, but do not see the point of opening a new one.
My post above proved a great pruning in the end for my poundland raspberries.
Thanks to all the ideas and ways on here.
Been eating bowlfuls of raspberries every 3-4 days since July and there are still plenty growing.
Have kept them watered, not fed them but they did have a load of my own compost spread around the plants.
They do get the full afternoon sun against the fence they grow next to.
I have let them grow freely untied and built a six foot by 18 inch string frame around them with cross strings to let them grow up and not fall over.
One thing though, like last year they are supplying over a long season.
last year the season went from July to November. Looks to be similar now.
I often read of summer and autumn raspberries varieties, but these seem to be both.
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Again, due to illness I did not prune my raspberries (Autumn Gold and Polka) after the Autumn crop 2 years ago. The next year I had a Summer crop on the old canes and another crop on the new Autumn canes. The Gold rasps were plump and juicy for both crops but the Polka were a bit small and weedy in the Summer.
Mind you they didn't get watered or fed.......