There are a few secrets on how to grow raspberries the best easy way that you may not know. Is there even a thing as too many raspberries?
Not around here, we love raspberry freezer jam and frozen raspberries in smoothies and oatmeal all year round! Eating raspberries in the winter is like a mouth full of warm summer sunshine in the middle of a freezing blizzard;)
Raspberries Growing Secrets
Raspberries are a delicious treat that’ll make your taste buds dance! Grow more and enjoy the sweet rewards… Learn how to grow raspberries by the gallon the easy way, and almost for for free!
Grow Raspberries For Free With Starts
Want more raspberries? Of course, you do… Who doesn’t? We all love raspberries and you can grow more raspberries for free by babysitting your starts! Raspberries are spread by their roots, and they send up new raspberry cane starts in the spring and throughout the season.
Don’t spray weeds in your raspberry patch, because you’ll get the starts too. Pull weeds in raspberry patches instead. Then transplant all those wonderful raspberry starts into rows to quickly grow your raspberry patch and production.
Save Money!
If you want to put in a new raspberry patch, find someone who already has one and get starts from them in the spring! This will save you so much money!
Fertilize Raspberries for a Bigger Harvest
Fertilize your raspberries canes with a general fertilizer in the early spring to help them produce more raspberries! You can use free fertilizer like homemade compost, composted cow manure, or fully composted chicken manure.
Make sure to mix your fertilizer well with soil so it doesn’t get too hot on your plants. If you are using cow manure use about 75 pounds to every 100 feet of raspberries.
If you’re planting raspberries for the first time, mix your fertilizer deep into the soil before planting your raspberry starts, for best production.
Mulch & Weed To Grow Raspberries
You wouldn’t think that weed control would be that important for berry production, but it is. Weeds eat up all the nutrients that your raspberry plants need and can choke them out.
Some weeds are worse than others, but they should all be removed from your raspberry patch on a regular basis.
Mulching between raspberry canes helps keep weeds down and helps keep the soil moist!
One of the worst weeds we have in Idaho is morning glory… Doesn’t sound like a weed, does it? However, morning glory spreads by the roots too, and climbs raspberry canes taking their sunshine. This weed, and others, can kill off a raspberry patch if not controlled.
Don’t mistake raspberry starts as weeds! Raspberries are spread by the roots; so they send up new shoots called raspberry starts. These baby raspberry canes will grow and produce raspberries next year, so don’t pull them out or spray them! Instead, transfer new raspberry starts into your rows to grow your patch!
Watering For More Raspberries!
One of the most important steps to growing more raspberries is to water them right! Raspberry plants can get diseased if you sprinkler them with water, so make sure you water them at ground level. Drip systems are the best and easiest way to keep your raspberries moist at ground level.
Before raspberry canes start producing fruit, just make sure the ground isn’t dry. Water just enough for them to continue producing starts and grow well… BUT AFTER raspberry canes start producing flowers, you need to make sure they have more water! After all, that’s how raspberries get their juice!
When raspberries are produced, they need plenty of water to continue growing large juicy berries! Don’t flood your raspberry patch, or let water sit on the ground around them… That can cause disease. However, make sure the soil stays good and moist. This will vary according to the weather and climate where you are.
Build Raspberry Support for Better Pollination & Berries
If you are growing summer fruiting raspberry varieties, you’ll need to build support for those canes! Fall fruiting raspberry plants get cut off after harvesting in the fall, so they don’t need support. But if you don’t support summer fruiting raspberry canes, they’ll lean over and your fruit will be on the ground.
Summer fruiting raspberry canes can grow over 10 feet tall, and can get weighted down with ripe raspberries.. So these canes need support.
The best way we’ve found (over 10 years of growing raspberries) is to use cross post supports. These cross supports give raspberry canes and patches more room for sunshine and air to flow through. Giving your raspberry plants the right support helps pollinators better do their jobs and makes for a healthier raspberry patch and tastier raspberries!
Get More Raspberries From Your Patch
If you have a great raspberry patch but don’t seem to be getting as many raspberries as you’d like, consider placing a bee hive close by!
Each raspberry starts out as a flower that has to be pollinated to become fruit… The more pollinators, like bees, you have close by, the more raspberries you’ll get.
Do You Cut Raspberry Plants Down Each Year?
Raspberry canes require annual pruning, but the method varies depending on the type. Summer-bearing varieties are pruned in spring to remove old canes and tip-prune new growth. Fall-bearing raspberries can be pruned for a single fall harvest by cutting all canes to the ground in late winter, or for two crops by pruning similarly to summer-bearing varieties and then cutting all canes after the summer harvest.
Regardless of the type, regular pruning is crucial for maintaining healthy plants, improving air circulation, and maximizing fruit production.
Harvest Right to get more Raspberries!
You may think that at this point you should just have more berries, and you well may… However, no matter which raspberry variety you have, this is when the work begins to ensure MORE RASPBERRIES!
Raspberries must be harvested regularly and before they get too ripe to continue producing MORE raspberries! If you slack at this point you will not get as many raspberries. That’s because raspberries will stop putting energy into growing new berries if old raspberries are rotting or drying up on the cane.
However, if you pick your ripe raspberries every day, raspberry canes will be able to continue to produce new berries longer! We like to pick raspberries every morning during their season. If we miss just one day, the canes produce less.
Raspberries Recipes
There are so many ways to use, or sell, your raspberries! My favorite way to preserve raspberries is to freeze them and make raspberry freezer jam.
Our family loves to throw frozen raspberries into our bowl of oatmeal to cool it down, and make smoothies. But the raspberry jam is the star of the show at breakfast! We love raspberry bread pudding, and smothering pancakes, sourdough waffles, and sourdough biscuits in raspberry freezer jam!
We also love making raspberry lemon-aid, and raspberry-filled jello on hot summer days!
ENJOY more raspberries this year!
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