Oregonians love their berries… strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries, plus all those hybrids like Marionberries. Thing is, most folks are exceptionally partial to red raspberries, probably because they can be had for a good part of the year.  This is due to the fact there are two types of red raspberries and one produces two crops annually.  Two-crop raspberries are often called “everbearers”, which they are not.  What they really are is “fall-bearers” meaning they bear a crop during the regular midsummer season on canes grown the year before and another crop in the fall on canes grown the current year.

Raspberries are really pretty easy to grow in regular vegetable patches, but beware, they will take over an entire 10x3 foot bed within three years.  So be prepared to have less space for tomatoes and other crops… this shouldn’t bother one little bit those of you who prefer to eat dessert over salad.  Now then, the best time to plant is in the Fall (now) when you’ll get the rains to help with watering the new plants—remember, water is cheap fruit insurance.  So, the basic approach to planting and growing raspberries the first year is to prep your soil by loosening it up and removing any weeds—don’t mix compost or mulch into the soil though, as you’ll want to apply it heavily after planting so it not only feeds the new canes but acts as a weed barrier.  Put your potted raspberries in the ground 2-feet apart and then mulch heavily.  Now go have a hot cup of apple cider and warm up indoors, Mother Nature will care for the new canes through the Fall/Winter, unless she decides we should have a dry spell which would mean you need to soak them.

In the early Spring, think late March-early April, you will want to cut back all plants to two inches above ground level to encourage maximum cane growth for a big crop.  Water regularly and keep out the weeds.  Your raspberries will do what they do best and by July you should have a healthy enough sized crop to decorate the top of every bowl of ice cream you dish up the rest of the Summer.  Come Fall, cut the tops of plants back so canes are about 4-feet tall.  This creates a stiff plant that doesn’t fall over and break in Winter’s snow and wind.

Come the third year, and for each year thereafter, in late May/early June you should mulch heavily to keep out those pesky nutrient-stealing weeds, and remove sucker plants that are growing outside the bed.  Also, cut off and throw in the trash, not the compost bin, any wilted tops of canes and/or sick-looking plants—these may be diseased or riddled with pests and you wouldn’t want to contaminate your compost.  Water regularly and deeply.  Then enjoy your berries and, if you didn’t plant the fall-bearing type, be sure to freeze some so you can have a taste of Summer in the Winter months too.  BTW, the best way to freeze raspberries is to place them in a single layer on a cookie sheet in the freezer until they are solid, then toss them all into an airtight container.  Otherwise you wind up with flattened berries, bits and pieces, and juice.

By mid-August you will need to cut to ground level the canes that bore fruit and now look sick—you should be able to tell which bore fruit because they will still have the stem of the berry attached.  Then thin the new canes to six inches apart and cut out any weak canes.  If pruning is neglected when you grow bramble fruits like raspberries, the plants will deteriorate rapidly because even though their roots are perennial, their canes are biennial, meaning each cane sprouts and grows to its full height in one year, bears fruit the following year, then dies.  Remember, the fall-bearers carry fruit on the current year’s canes so you won’t be eliminating any fruit by doing this pruning.  Come Fall, say October, cut canes back to 4-feet in height for Winter.  Put up wire or net for support if necessary—mine is bird netting stretched diagonally across three 8-foot 2x2 posts through the length of the bed.  Add mulch and manure.

Soooo, who would like to exchange raspberry recipes?  I’ve got them for everything from cheesecake to granola…