[elsiepumpkin]

Hi everyone
I have quite a large and mature raspberry bed on my allotment. It gets very weedy underneath with couch grass and this year I was thinking of planting some flowers beneath the canes as ground cover. What do people think? I was thinking maybe nasturtiums or poached egg plant? Will they grow? Will they take nutrients away from the fruit bushes? I heavily manured them a couple of months ago. I could of course just weed them better if it's a stupid idea.
I'm new here and this is my first post so please don't be too hard on me!

[snow white]

I had lots of marigold flowers under my raspberries.  Loads of raspberries.  No wasps.  Everyone else has problems.  Don't know if it was the flowers or not, but they certainly looked pretty. 

[Yorkie]

Welcome to the site 

We try not to be too hard on anyone 

One problem you'll encounter on here, though, is that if you ask 3 gardeners the same question, you'll get at least 5 different answers!! 

I personally wouldn't try to grow anything in the same area as the roots because raspberries are very shallow rooted and hungry / thirsty plants - so wouldn't appreciate the competition, I would have thought.

[Sparkyrog]

Interesting idea and 1 I had not considered ! But it's an interesting concept I may try ,as plants like nasturtiums would possibly act as  mulch to keep the sun off . 

[Trillium]

I'm with Yorkie - nothing competing with the raspberries. If anything, I'd mulch around the raspberries to keep in moisture and block out some weeds (which is what I did last year).  Their roots are just too shallow.

[elsiepumpkin]

Hi all, thanks for the replies. It's a big square bed so i may compromise by mulching with straw (good idea that!) and then grow marigolds all round the edges (another good idea!).

[diospyros]

Some of my neighbours have raspberry "thickets" so I was planning on making sure mine kept to rows, and then each side sowing something like alfalfa which has quite deep roots so should bring up nutrients from lower down which i can then cut and use as mulch.

[snowdrops]

Hmm interesting as only yesterday I was wondering whether to plant some spare daffodil & tulip bulbs that I had forgotten about around my raspberries.

[Goosegirl]

I think it is a lovely idea, but I would get rid of the couch grass first as that can grow through plants. mulches and even weed-supressant membrane.

[8doubles]

I always use the first few cuttings of grass off the lawn to mulch the rasps, they seem to like it !

[3759allen]

i've put rhubarb in front of my raspberries.

my theory is that they will act as a weed suppressant during the summer as well as giving fruit from a space i didn't know what to do with. the crowns are over 1/2 meter away from the canes so hoping they won't compete for nutrients,  while the leaves can easily spread as far as the raspberries but not block the sun or heat from them.

i heavily mulched the bed over the winter while everything had died back.

this will only be the second year so can't tell how the theory actually works yet.

[Lardman]

Hmm interesting as only yesterday I was wondering whether to plant some spare daffodil & tulip bulbs that I had forgotten about around my raspberries.

I keep meaning to do that, if only to bring a little low maintenance interest to veg garden at this time of year.

[gremlin]

I was wondering about snowdrops or early daffs. They will have flowered and gone before the raspberries shade them out.

Downside is they are fairly expensive and I don't know if the bulbs will build up enough strength year on year if the after flowing green leaves are shaded out.

[Yorkie]

I think you'd get away with bulbs, as long as the roots weren't damaged when digging the holes for the bulbs.

[gavinjconway]

Yorkie I was thinking of growing beetroot with my rasps... what do you reckon on that?