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Planting and Caring for Raspberry Plants
Planting and caring for raspberry plants is really quite easy once you
know a few secrets about raspberry plants. Good healthy raspberry plants
will provide you with an ample supply of sweet, delicious fruit.
A few preparation steps are required before you can begin planting and
caring for your raspberry plants. You must decide where you want to raise
your raspberry plants. The soil must be well drained. In other words, the
area should quickly dry after rain and not hold standing water. The plants
must have enough room for their roots to grow up to 4 feet long.
Raspberry plants require 1 to 2 inches of water per week and full
exposure to sunlight. The area where you plant and care for your raspberry
plants should be away from buildings or trees, giving the plant
well-circulated air, while avoiding exposure to extreme winds. It is best
to avoid areas where wild raspberry and blackberry plants are growing, and
shy away from land where potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, or eggplants were
grown within the last four years. These extra efforts will help to prevent
the spread of Verticillium wilt, which can destroy your plants.
A year before planting your raspberry plants you should prepare the
soil. This consists of destroying annual weeds and adding compost to your
soil. Testing the pH or acidity of your soil would also be a good idea.
The area you are going to plant and care for your raspberry plants should
have a pH of approximately 5.8 -6.5. If the pH of your soil is high or low
you can add nutrients to regulate the pH. Your local county extension
office can usually do a soil test for you, and they will recommend any
amendments that your soil may need.
Once you have chosen and prepared an area to plant and care for your
raspberry plants you are ready to plant.
Purchasing your raspberry plants from a reliable source is advisable to
ensure disease-free plants. Fertilizer should be spread on the planting
site and mixed into the soil before planting. 10-10-10 gardening
fertilizer would be suitable. Make sure you follow the recommendations on
the bag.
Raspberry plants should be planted in the spring, after there is no
longer worry of frost. When digging a hole you should keep in mind that
you want the plant to set at the same depth as it was in the nursery. Once
the plant has been placed in the hole you need to fill the hole in with
extra dirt, packing the soil firmly around the roots of the plant. The
newly planted raspberry plants should then be well watered.
We
sold $25,753 worth of our
little plants right from our driveway in a
matter of about six weeks!
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Once you have your raspberry plants in the ground it is now time to
begin caring for your plants. The area should remain weed free and once a
week you need to thoroughly water your plants if there hasn’t been
sufficient rainfall. If you decide to mulch you should be aware that your
plants will be more susceptible to winter injury because the mulch creates
a delay in the plant hardening and going dormant in late fall. You may
spread sawdust, bark, pine needles, or rotted leaves at the base of the
plants. These organic mulches are quite compatible with your raspberry
plants.
Planting and caring for raspberry plants also requires fertilization
each year with a 10-10-10 gardening fertilizer. Fertilizer should be
applied twice a year, initially as the plants begin to bloom in order to
stimulate plant growth, increase berry size and increase the total amount
of berries produced. After fruit harvest the raspberry plant should be
fertilized again. This will stimulate cane growth for the next season. For
every 100 feet of row you will use ten pounds of fertilizer throughout the
season; five pounds at blooming time and another five pounds after
harvest.
During the first year your raspberry plants will not produce any fruit.
They are in the process of growing and collecting nutrients. Their slender
but strong stems, known as canes, last for two years. The canes produced
during the first year of growth are called primocanes and during their
second year of growth, when they bloom and produce fruit, they are known
as floricanes.
Black and purple raspberries are different from the red raspberries
when it comes to pruning. The black and purple raspberries should be
pruned three times a year. First in about mid March when you will be
cutting back the lateral branches to 8 to 10 inches. The second pruning is
done in summer and is known as tipping. When the canes on black
raspberries reach a height of 24 inches and the canes on the purple
raspberries reach 30 inches you will need to trim the top two to three
inches of the canes. Finally, the canes that produced fruit will need to
be removed after harvest.
Red raspberry plants are either summer bearing or everbearing. It is
important to know whether your plants are summer bearing or everbearing
before determining how to prune them.
Everbearing red raspberries, also known as fall-bearing or primocane-bearing
raspberries, produce a fall crop of berries in late summer on the top
third of the cane, and a second crop the next June on the bottom
two-thirds of the cane. Everbearing raspberries can be grown for both
these crops or they can be pruned so that only the late summer crop is
harvested. For the largest yield from your everbearing raspberries, the
canes can be cut back to the ground and removed in late fall or early
spring. This will eliminate the June crop but the late summer crop will be
earlier and more productive. This is recommended in areas where raspberry
diseases tend to be a problem.
You will prune your everbearing raspberries differently if you wish to
harvest both the spring and late summer crops. Following the harvest of
the late summer crop, the top third of the cane will die back and it
should be pruned off in early spring before new growth appears. The lower
part of the can will then produce fruit in early summer and new primocanes
will grow up from the roots to produce the late summer crop. After the
canes have produced their crops they should be pruned to the ground and
removed from the raspberry patch.
Summer red raspberries need to be pruned twice a year. They should be
pruned in the early spring and then immediately after harvest. In late
March or early April you want to remove all weak and dead canes and cut
back any canes over 5 feet long. After harvest you will be removing all
the floricanes that produced fruit, leaving behind the primocanes for next
year’s crop.
When the berries are easily separated from the core they are ready to
pick. Black raspberries never become easy to remove so you must pay close
attention to their color and taste when deciding the proper time for them
to be picked.
If birds are eating your raspberries before you can pick them, you may
need to cover the plants with bird netting to avoid losing your crop to
hungry birds. Bird netting can be purchased at many garden centers or
garden catalogs.
Fresh raspberries are tasty, nutritious and very easy to grow. A
healthy stand of raspberry plants will provide many years of fresh berries
and delicious desserts for your family.
We sold
$25,753 worth of our
little plants right from our driveway in a
matter of about six weeks!