Raspberries. Beautiful little beauties. We have been harvesting raspberries for about twelve years now. At our new farmhouse, we now have blackberries. They are a pretty easy plant to maintain, but there are a few key things you need to keep an eye on.
Raspberries are ready to harvest, usually towards the middle/end of July here in New York. As with all fruits, this depends on the winter and summer you are having weather-wise.
SUPER GOOD FOR YOU
Did you know raspberries contain more vitamin c than oranges? They are super high in fiber and low in calories!
PLANT RASPBERRIES WHERE YOU HAVE ROOM TO HAVE THEM SPREAD
Raspberries grow new canes every year. They will take over if you let them. If you do not have an area for them to expand, be prepared to prune these things back and cut back new growth every year. As you can see in the picture below, we have a pretty large raspberry bush, and they have now created a row all on their own. They also show up in the lawn around the perimeter of the raspberry bush.
RASPBERRIES FREEZE AWESOME
Raspberries and blueberries are my absolute favorite to freeze. You can easily throw them in a bag and pull them out as needed. Or if you have freezer space, you can lay them all out on a freezer sheet and let them freeze for a few hours and then store in a plastic Ziploc freezer bag.
When your kids want a snack in the winter, they have berries! These also are great in smoothies and the super hot summer days. My chickens love them as well. Have a little one teething? These were a huge help when my girls were teething.
VERY SEEDY
Raspberries average 100 -120 seeds! Depending on the variety you have, some are tougher to chew than others. The seeds are the fiber though!
PRUNE EVERY YEAR
Every year, you must prune out the dead shoots of your raspberries. This will increase your production of berries.
For a single fall crop on ever-bearers, start by cutting off all the old canes at ground level when they are done fruiting. Be sure to remove the dead canes from the patch.
Summer-bearing red raspberries produce fruit on 2-year-old-canes. So you will want to cut down the old, grayish-brown fruit-producing canes after you harvest, but leave the new, current-season canes to produce berries next year.
In late winter, remove the smallest canes to leave three to six sturdy canes per foot of a row.
THE MORE YOU PICK, THE MORE THEY GROW
Harvest your berries when they are ripe and sweet. They will not continue to ripen once picked.
Our rule of thumb is if you give them a slight pull and they easily pull away they are ripe. If you have to really give it a tug they are not ripe yet.
PICK BERRIES IN THE EARLY MORNING
You want to pick your berries when the sun is just rising. Bees are a friend you don’t want to fight with over the berries and boy, did we all get stung, not realizing this was a key thing. It’s also better to pick when the berries are cool- which they are first thing in the morning.
WATCH OUT FOR DISEASES
We had orange rust in one of our patches, and it is painful. When you have a large area of raspberries, you want to treat any disease right away because, before you know it it has spread all over your entire patch.
Here is a great reference for the types of diseases your fruits can get and what to do about them.
THEY HATE TOMATOES
The University of Maine says you should plant with caution to not plant where tomatoes, potatoes, peppers or eggplant have been grown within the past four years because of these crops carry a root rot called Verticillium that can attack the raspberries.
RASPBERRIES CAN KEEP DEER AWAY
If you need to have some fencing or an area to keep deer out of consider using raspberries as a way to block it. They spread so quickly, and the prickly vines keep the deer away. Plus if you free-range your chickens, they love going through the patch, and you’ll rest easy knowing they are safer.
You can get a peek at our blackberry patch in our new Farm Life Vlog Video
Do you grow raspberries?! What tips do you have to share with us?
Nemanja
Friday 3rd of August 2018
Greetings from Serbia I have 0.7 acre od raspberries, Meeker. I put wooden polles every 16ft in each row and 8ft between rows. i keep 1 bee hive for pollination and from this amount of raspberries i get about 15-18kg of honey (25-30pounds) for our family and friends. Also using diy compost and manure for what ever farm animal i can get and using red worms in it over the year (6months at least for worms to do their job) and then fertilise them with manure in early winter also adding some artificial fertilizer like NPK 16:16:16 and then till that both sides off the each row. After tilling you need to do small ditch about 30cm (13 inches) from the row on each side about 4-5 inches deep so those newly growing raspberries will spread only in their row and not leave it and spread 3-4 ft away. For organic repellent of pest's I use onion solution, sodium bicarbonate solution and lady bugs. Those 3 handle 90% od pests and sicknes we get on our raspberies. For keeping the weeds under control around them, I cut grass with gass powered buss cutter and also use white vinegar 12%, it burns all grass above ground and you are spared for a month not to worry about that grass.. Also chickens are good to have in raspberies (note that they will eath all raspberies they can reach (about 2-2,5ft from ground) but will also poop around them fertilizing those plants and keeping small grass and bugs under control. Note that wild animals love berries so if you grow them more then a few: like for your jamm, fresh eating,frezzing or selling them, make sure you have some fence around it (deers and rabbits can make a chaos there, not to mention some birds (we cover ours with anti-hale netting).
Tasia
Monday 6th of August 2018
Hello! WOW! That was such great information. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. Our chickens love the raspberry bush too. I am a little sad we didn't get as great of a harvest as last year. We have had a very dry summer where last year it felt like nonstop rain but the berries were so bountiful!
Lorna Manley
Friday 20th of April 2018
Thank you I want a raspberry patch so bad ! I have 2 bushes and it seems I might have to dig them up and replant . I put them in a vegetable raised bed . The bed had squash and tomatoes in it and zucchini 2 summers ago .They may not even be alive .I will have to check them to see if they are alive .