Raspberry Essentials

Food Gardening Guide → Fruit Gardening Guide for Raspberries

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• Plant in late winter or early spring.
• Select plants that are bare-root or rooted in soil.
• Buy only certified virus-free plants. Black raspberries are especially vulnerable to disease, so plant resistant varieties when possible.
• Summer-bearers should yield some berries in their second year and then full crops each succeeding summer. Everbearers may produce some fruit the first fall.

• Select a site in full sun; avoid frost pockets.
• Eliminate perennial weeds, preferably with a cover crop planted 1 year in advance. Mix in 1 to 2 pounds of 10-10-10 fertilizer for every 20 feet of row or plenty of manure in early spring before you plant.
• Destroy neighboring wild raspberries or blackberries to prevent disease from spreading to your plants.

• Keep the aisles between rows tilled bare or plant grass and keep it mowed.
• Cultivate to control weeds early the first summer, then mulch thickly. Once the plants are established, maintain a layer of mulch 4 to 8 inches deep year-round.
• Dig or till up suckers that spread beyond row boundaries.
• Erect a T-trellis if your canes don't stand up on their own.
• Prune during the dormant season. Remove dead and weak canes; thin out the healthiest ones. Blackcaps must also be summer-topped.
• See our article Fruit Pests and Diseases for controls of common raspberry pests such as cane borers, crown borer, and anthracnose disease.

• Berries usually ripen over a period of 2 to 3 weeks during early summer; everbearers yield again for several weeks in early fall.
• When they slide easily off the small white core, berries are ripe.
• Pick into small containers so bottom berries are not crushed.

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