The sweetest of garden snacks, that you will have to beat the birds to. Raspberry often doesn’t make it to the kitchen unless its via the juice on your own hands. To counteract this plant more canes so that you can have a bigger harvest and eventually the rest of your housemates will get to try some of that raspberry you’ve been talking so much about. Cane are available in nurseries at winter as bare rooted stock.
PLANTING
Dig a hole roughly 20cm wide and deep, place the root zone in the hole and then cover them over with soil until ground level is restored. Make sure that the cane is vertical and then water in with fish fertiliser or seaweed extract. Mulch with either pea straw or lucerne hay to a depth of 2-3cm immediately after watering.
WATERING
In ground: Water daily, first thing in the morning, for the first 4 weeks and 3-4 times a week in the absence of rainfall thereafter.
In Pots: Water daily, in the absence of rainfall, for the entirety of the warm season, and then cut back to watering every second day during the cooler times of the year.
MAINTENANCE
Mulch well to retain soil moisture and suppress weeds, but keep away from the trunk to prevent rot. Apply an all-round fertiliser to soil when growth begins in early spring. Canes that have died or bared fruit in the past season should be cut down at ground level during winter.
HARVESTING
Time until first harvest: although new canes may produce some berries in the first year, it will take at least 1-2 of growth until you get some meaningful fruit
How to harvest: let raspberries ripen on the plant and then gently pull from the cluster using ‘soft hands’ as opposed to the ‘oversized brute hands’ you normally enlist for help. Fruit is ripe when it is well coloured and comes easily off the stem. Best eaten fresh although raspberries will freeze well.
TIP
Soak raspberry roots for a couple of hours before planting to decrease transplant shock.
