Monday, June 7, 2010

Big Raspberry Mistake

I have big beautiful healthy leaves on my raspberry plants.  They have been so prolific that they have grown out of the drainage holes in the bottom of their 36" pots and attempted to take over my gravel driveway.

Unfortunately, I have few berries. I made a big mistake. I read all about how and when to prune ever bearing raspberries. I read somewhere to cut back all the old canes in the early spring. Maybe that advice was for fall bearing raspberries and I didn't pay enough attention to what I was reading. I should have been skeptical, since I also remember reading that the berries fruit on old canes. In my zeal to prune my raspberries 'correctly,' I pruned out most of the canes that would have given me a late spring harvest. Consequently, I have 3 canes total out of 6 huge containers of raspberries that set fruit. Fortunately, I missed pruning back those three old canes. On those canes, I have several raspberries.  They are quite tasty but I can only harvest 6-12 ripe berries at a time. I learned an important lesson: I should prune raspberry canes after they are done setting fruit.

4 comments:

  1. They are wonderful! Bummer about the pruning - but next year you will have a bounty. Oh, how I wish I had some room for raspberries. I bought some golden raspberries and I'm hoping they take even though I don't have too much sun where they are growing. Cross fingers!

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  2. I have a small garden, so I decided to plant them in 36" pots. They seem to be doing fine. They have escaped through the drainage holes, so my secret plot to outsmart them is to place the pots on cement pavers. I dare them to try to grow through the cement!!!

    Good luck with your raspberries! I love the goldens. I have 4 fall gold pots and two heritage pots.

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  3. I managed to get a handful of the goldens this morning off of one of the canes that I missed when I was pruning. They were so sweet and delicious. They made for a great breakfast appetizer.

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  4. Awesome - so glad that you got some. I'll have to wait for another 2 months at least!

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