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I will share the principles I have adopted from my growing practice. We used to sell raspberries throughout the whole region, today, because we are retired, we grow raspberries only for our own needs and I know that with proper care you can achieve real wonders. The plant can be used to the maximum without exhausting it to death.
This must be observed:
I recommend planting double-bearing raspberry varieties – you will benefit from them for a long time and the harvest will be abundant.
Do not plant them near vegetable beds or near fruit-bearing trees – they will draw nutrients from the soil.
Raspberries are not demanding of your attention or the soil. They require loose soil well supplied with humus, but you will achieve excellent yields even in poorer soils. More important for them is sufficient light. If you want more bushes, find a larger area; you must account for the fact that raspberries will spread.
The root system of raspberries is shallow, so during dry periods it is important to supply them with moisture. The soil around the bushes should be loosened, but only to a depth of 5-10 cm, because the roots are very shallow.
If you are planning to plant now – in the spring do not forget before planting to trim the roots and shorten the above-ground part of the plant to 1/3 of its length. Between the plants in a row there should be a distance of at least 0.7 m and between rows 1.8 meters. For each row it is good to have a support reaching a height of 1.2 m – the support should in no case be a dense net through which enough light will not penetrate. Every year in spring 5-10 new shoots grow from the base of the plant and the plant spreads in width. After winter it is necessary to check the plants and remove thin, dried as well as weak shoots.
Do not allow them to fruit in the summer
By the beginning of summer the plant should be thinned and kept airy. The raspberry will give you a harvest twice a year – in summer and in autumn. On this year’s shoots it will fruit in autumn and on last year’s in summer. However, if you have experience that the summer fruits are infested and there are few of them – this is caused by the woolly raspberry aphid, which lives only in the summer fruits. In that case concentrate only on the autumn crop and feel free to prune last year’s shoots drastically in the spring – down to just above the ground, so that you channel all the strength into the new shoots, which will bring a rich harvest in autumn. If you want to harvest twice, it’s enough that after the summer harvest you only remove weak and spent shoots.
If you notice during May that the plant is producing few new shoots, I recommend trying an old proven solution – a mullein infusion (500 ml of pulpy mullein poured with a bucket of water and left to steep) diluted with water in a ratio of 1:5 we use for watering at the roots.
After harvesting the autumn crop shorten the top shoots (those that fruited) by about 1/3 down to the green tissue.
Every autumn after pruning I give each plant 3-4 shovelfuls of humus and the soil should be lightly loosened
You can plant raspberries in spring and autumn. If you have raspberries in pots with an established root system, you can practically plant them at any time.
Old advice for autumn planting
I have one tip, though, if you are going to plant in autumn and it comes from my grandfather. Plant raspberries where you planted early potatoes in spring and after their harvest peas. After harvesting the green pods dig the harvested pea plants into the soil. At the end of September you can plow in good compost or manure. In the second half of October dig the soil with a hoe (or run over it with a motor cultivator), dig the holes and you can plant the raspberries.
