Most wait until winter to do this, but I do mine right away. For starters, with all the new growth of spring, my raspberry patch has become a jungle. I order to get a better look at what I’ve got going on there, I prune.
First, let me clarify. My canes are summer bearing. I get only one crop of raspberries each year. This makes my job a little easier when it comes to pruning. I simply cut away the canes that have already produced fruit. I do it after harvest because it is easiest for me to see what canes have fruited and what canes have not. Next year’s crop will grow on the new shoots of this year.
I remember the raspberry pruning mantra, “If it’s brown, cut it down.” Into the yard waste bag those canes go. I don’t like to compost thorny things. I ran into a not yet decomposed rose trunk in a compost pile once and cut myself badly. I’ll let the city and their heavy machinery compost my canes for me.
Once everything brown is cleared, I check for anything growing outside my raspberry patch domain. Raspberries multiply by sending out suckers and I am pretty sure that they would take over the planet, given half the chance. I dig up any suckers that are out of line and pass them on to a friend in need of a raspberry patch. There’s no need to be stingy with raspberries. There will always be more coming up in the path, in the rhubarb, in the tomatoes. Those canes will get dug up and will go to my daughter’s own raspberry patch so she and her friends can eat until their bellies bust.
For more information on pruning raspberries, check out this site. http://www.tallcloverfarm.com/3366/pruning-raspberries-gardenings-whos-on-first
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