Raspberry Canes

When I’m planning my little bit of garden where the fruit and vegetables will go, I always try to make room for Raspberry canes. They’re fairly easy to get started and the results are usually pretty good, not to mention the fact that a big bowlful of raspberries with crushed meringue and whipped cream is just the best afternoon tea in the garden with friends and a bottle of white wine.

Raspberries, in appearance at least do look similar to blackberries, or brambles. The main difference being that when you take the raspberry from the stalk, the fruit is hollow and the core stays on the plant. With blackberries or brambles, the core is part of the fruit.

The best planting time for raspberries is in the autumn. If your planting site isn’t quite ready by the time you’ve bought the plants, they can be stored in the fridge; this helps them stay dormant until you’re ready to plant them.

In preparation for planting your raspberry canes, the site needs digging over and any roots, weeds and rocks need to be removed. It’s also a good idea to dig in plenty of well rotted horse manure. The bed will need leaving for a few weeks then for it to settle and the manure to leech in.

You will need quite a lot of room to grow raspberries, but having said that, if you don’t have a large garden, you can just plant 2 or 3 canes around a vertical pole or post.

To grow raspberries in rows, the rows will need to be about 6-10 feet apart to allow enough room for walking in between. They will also need supporting on sturdy galvanised wire strung between hefty posts or 8ft tree stakes, where you have 2 ft in the ground and 6ft above. A good spacing for the tree stakes is about 10 feet apart.

Raspberries grow best when they don’t have wet feet; they just can’t cope with waterlogged roots, and will rot. I grow mine in a raised bed. Yes, it does mean that I have to climb up to reach the fruit at the top of the canes, but the overall results are better and worth the extra effort.

By planting the raspberry canes at the correct spacing, this helps to ensure good airflow around the plants and helps the night time dew to dry off quickly and helps prevent the spread of disease, so try to avoid planting them too near to hedges, sheds, walls etc.

Once you’ve planted your raspberry canes, a mulch of straw, shredded paper, sawdust or shavings will help to keep the weeds down. Also, please don’t plant you raspberry canes in a site where there have previously been peppers, tomatoes or potatoes growing. The diseases they are prone to can easily be passed on to the raspberries.

Raspberries are hungry and thirsty plants and will need plenty of food and water to provide a good crop. They will need some general purpose fertilizer in the spring, and regular watering when it’s dry; so it’s not too complicated, but they will need it.

Raspberries are fairly straight forward to get along with, and if you choose a selection of different varieties that fruit at different times throughout the season, you can ensure that you can go out to the garden and pick some fresh raspberries whenever you feel like it!

If you would like to read about some more detailed gardening information written from a non-technical, but practical point of view, please feel free to have a look at my Garden Pots website.