Growing Raspberries
Raspberries are very easy to grow, once you start them there is very little care for such fabulous fuit. Raspberries canes are a biennial plant, they grow 1 year and produce fruit in the second year and die back. Here is their lifecycle and what you need to do:1. 1st year growth comes off of the roots of established plants, the stems will be green changing to purple towards the end of summer. The new canes will grow to 4 or 5 feet.
2. In late fall, cut back this new growth to about 3 feet.
3. At the same time in late fall, the canes that produced fruit will be dead. It is not hard to tell the 1st year canes apart from the 2nd year canes at this point. Many of the second year canes will be very brittle, you may not even need a clippers to remove some of them, they will snap off at the ground with little effort.
4. In spring, the canes that produce fruit will bud from the entire cane. The cane color will be dark brown. Nothing to cut back at all now, just watch them grow. At this time you will also see new green shoots coming up for next year's crop. If you have too many shoots coming up, now is the time to thin them, cut them off at the base of the plant. I have found that in my patch, they have never gotten too thick, but they do start spreading to areas you don't want them in.
I put a temporary 3 foot fence around my raspberry patch to discourage critters, you can find simple ones at a garden center. I have not put any netting over them, the deer have not bothered to nibble on mine and the if the birds eat any, it is minor. Usually with netting, birds find their way in anyway and you have to deal with getting the bird out. I'll post some photos soon too.
Happy eating!
