Kitchen Garden Forum

A couple of years ago I planted half a dozen Bliss autumn rasperries. I've noticed that they only produce one cluster of fruit at the top of the cane. As I've not grown them before I'm wondering if this is characteristic of this variety. They're planted against a north facing fence and get little sunshine so it's not an ideal spot for them them and possibly this is the cause of so few fruits?

Hi Primrose, perhaps it is like All Gold - two crops in the same year. Like other autumn raspberries, it will crop on the new season's growth August-October, What I do is just trim off the tips that have fruited and leave the rest of those stems to re-crop the following June, whilst training the new stems in for the following autumn's crop.

I grow All Gold and Joan J and have found that both crop much better if I am a bit more strict when I cut back some of the new canes.
I will cut back all this year's canes to the ground and then when the new canes grow in spring I cut out any think canes and also some others so that air can circulate. I maybe leave about 6-8 canes per plant.
I don't know if this could help your Autumn Bliss as I have never grown that variety.

I feed mine in autumn with some well rotted manure and mulch in spring, they need adequate watering too, mine are quite prolific in production. The man who produced the redlove apple suggested two crops from all gold on one of his videos, it works for me. I have a cousin who worked at west malling fruit research station, next time I see him I'll ask him which method he thinks works best.

If tended in the traditional way for autumn raspberries (the only way I've tried), it's true that Autumn Bliss fruits mostly at the top of the canes. This does have one advantage - I'd read that birds don't go for autmn raspberries because they don't expect to see the fruit at this season, but I think it's because they can't readily perch on the top of the canes... We grew Autumn Bliss for several years in our previous garden and found them to be very vigorous and heavy croppers once they were established. They appreciate feeding, though, and also watering. Your canes may need extra water if they are growing close to a wall.