Is there anything better than having a warm, fat, ripe red raspberry roll off your fingertips into your hand and then popping it in your mouth? No. No, there isn’t. I planted raspberries for the first time back in 2015 in The Gardening Passion Expands garden. Back then, our teenagers were actively trying to eat us out of house and home, so the effort to put in a row of raspberries was worth it! Growing raspberries is pretty simple. The most critical part is pruning them in the late winter for healthy growth and early spring to control growth.
Floricane or Primocane-Bearing
Before you can prune your raspberries correctly, you first have to know if you have Floricane-Bearing Raspberry Plants or Primocane-Bearing Raspberry Plants. I have had heritage red raspberry, a Primocane-Bearing Raspberry cold-hardy variety for eight years now, and I love, love, love them. In fact, I’ve actually moved with them two times and planted them both in the Quick Turn Garden; two years and counting and the The Empty Nest Garden; totally out of control!
Pruning Primocane-Bearing Raspberry Plants
Also called “everbearing” or “fall-bearing” raspberries. Primocane-bearing raspberry plants are unique because they tend to bear fruit on the tips of their one-year-old canes, which ripen in fall in milder climates. In addition, as these primocanes become floricanes in their second year, they will fruit again, this time on the lower part of their canes the following summer. Other than that, these can be pruned and maintained in a similar fashion to the typical raspberry plants.
When to Prune Raspberries
In late winter (February in New England), prune back dead canes and remove all thin, dead, damaged, diseased, or otherwise weak canes. You’ll know a cane is an old cane by the color – it will be a lighter, almost grey color, and the skin will look like it’s peeling.
How to Prune Raspberries
- As your raspberry plants mature, it is recommended that you cut back the small, thin canes to leave only about 8 to 10 of the strongest ones. I tend to leave quite a few more.
- Prune young canes back until they are around 4 to 5 feet tall. This will discourage overgrowth and shading and will improve fruit production and quality. I like to get the hedge clippers out and clip all the tops off nice and evenly.
- If one large crop is desired, cut all canes back to ground level after the fall crop. This will result in a single, large primocane crop the following fall. Be aware,cutting all canes back to ground level is not recommended for northern gardens like ours in zone 5b because of the short growing season and early fall frosts.
- Burn or dispose of pruned canes to avoid spreading disease to active plants.
After having fresh raspberries right outside our backdoor for over eight years over two gardens, there was no doubt we would plant them again. Now that the kids have grown and gone, the hubbs and I enjoy raspberries we pull out of The Empty Nest Garden all year by freezing them. Then, of course, it never gets old watching kids eat raspberries out of the garden. Now, we get to enjoy our niece and nephew popping berries into their mouths.
Do you have raspberries in your garden already? Have I convinced you? 😉
~ Lola
“There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments!”
Materials to build a raspberry trellis yourself!
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Gardens we’ve built
Why I Garden; if you grow it, they will eat it
Community Oasis Garden; exploring the passion
The Gardening Passion Expands; the garden that created a bidding war
Quick Turn Garden; two years and counting
The Empty Nest Garden; totally out of control
Coops we’ve built
How NOT to Build a Chicken Coop
The Bored Engineer’s Coop
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