Pruning Raspberries

General tips / questions on seeding & planting

Moderators: KG Steve, Chantal, Tigger, peter

Marken
KG Regular
Posts: 118
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 6:01 pm
Location: Bristol

I want to share a raspberry pruning method as practiced by my dear old mum! She grows Autumn Bliss, a late cropping variety. However, following her method, she gets both an early (June) and a late crop. The overall yield is therefore spread over two cropping periods, helping to avoid a glut of raspberries.
I'll try to explain as best I can:
In year one, prune all the canes to ground level after fruiting, as normal with Autumn fruiting raspberries. The plant will produce new canes which you allow to grow on. In about late June the following year (year 2), prune out about half of these new growths. The remaining canes will grow on to produce fruit that Autumn. Meanwhile the plant also grows new canes to replace the ones pruned in June. These will then fruit the following June (year 3). When they have fruited, prune these out to encourage new canes. Of course the canes left to fruit in Autumn (year 2) are pruned out to allow new canes to grow and fruit the following Autumn (year 3). You then continue this cycle. This is a useful technique where space is limited and you only have room for one variety of raspberry. You can always tell the new canes by their greenish colour.

I'm sure you're all confused now by my explanation, but it really does work!