Our little raspberry canes are starting to grow leaves now and hopefully this year we will get more than 20 fruits! Two years ago we bought one raspberry cane and planted it into a large tyre. We planted it fairly late so we were delighted with our 25 raspberried that we got from it in September. The following year alot of new canes sprouted from the original one and so the tyre got over crowded.
So here are some tips on growing raspberries the right way :) . What I did not realise was that you should limit to amount of new canes that grow. The reason for this is that having too many canes will drain the nutrients and therefore there isn't enough left for fruiting. So although we had loads of raspberry plants we had very few fruits.
The other problem with growing them in a container is that they don't like their roots to be warm apparently. Other fruits, like strawberries and blackcurrants do like it if their roots get warm but not raspberries.
So this year I split up all the canes and planted them in the ground with plenty of space between them. I did this in mid January but I should have done it in November so that their roots would have had time to establish. But they still look really happy at the moment so I'm hopeful for our harvest this year. I put home made compost into a trench and then put the canes in about a foot apart. Then I put a load of old horse manure on top of them. This will gradually rot down into the soil carrying it's nutrients dow to the roots. What I have to do from now on is to only allow a few new canes to develop.
The one good thing is that we now have 10 raspberry plants as well as the one we started with so with any luck we will be able to go out and pick more than one raspberry at a time when they fruit.
In general I find it hard enough to find good information about growing fruit. There seems to be much more space devoted to vegetables, so I'm only slowly finding out about it all. Maybe in 20 years I'll know something about it!
Well Maria, I'm loving the blog! In other news, where's my strawberry plant:) There's good sunshine going to waste here in 316
Posted by: Peter Kenny | 22 March 2007 at 13:10