[heygrow]

Hope someone can help me decide if I have Summer or Autumn raspberries.

We moved into our house in April and inherited som nice raspberry canes. Thing is that I'm not sure what type they are (summer or Autumn). I know it should be easy, but they started to fruit in early August (not many though) and have continued to increase in fruit to give us a very good crop over the last three weeks or so and continue, but look to be slowing down as days get a bit colder. I would have thought that if they were Autumn type they would only just be starting now and if summer they would be finished.

I want to know how to cut back and I understand it varies depending upon type. So I don't want to cut all the canes down if they are summer type. Some more information is that when we came in April there were not any canes tied up, but there was some low growth of the canes that are now full height and producing.

Another complication may be that the previous owners may not have pruned back correctly and we ended up getting two crops or maybe we have two types in the one plot!

[DD.]

Autumn ones will fruit from around August onwards and pack in about now.

The big give away is that they fruited on the canes that grew this year. This being the case you can cut all the canes back come early winter.

[heygrow]

Many thanks DD for the quick answer. I'm now sure it's the Autumn ones, so I'll cut all back canes later. It just seemed to me we were just entering Autumn, so that's why I was confused a bit. The raspberries are great though 

[Kristen]

If you only cut back canes that have the remains of the core that the fruit was picked from you can't go far wrong - that will work for Summer and Autumn fruiting varieties.

If the bed is completely bare at the end of the operation yours are Autumn fruiting but not impossible that you have a mix that have intermingled over time.