Pruning the Raspberry Bushes
Another pruning task can be checked off the list - my raspberry bushes are done.
I love growing all kinds of berries and have been growing them for many years. I currently have large patches of red raspberries, golden raspberries, black raspberries, currants, gooseberries, blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries. Many berries are best eaten raw, but they can be used in a variety of ways - as ingredients in jams and jellies, pies and tarts, and delicious summer juices. For the best yields from these plants it's crucial that berry bushes be pruned properly and regularly. Pruning produces larger berries in greater volumes and it helps to control diseases that might otherwise spread. My gardener, Brian O'Kelly, took on the task of pruning the raspberries this week - trimming the old canes and branches back to get the bushes ready for next season.
Here are some photos - enjoy.
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- Fresh, homegrown berries are so delicious. I’ve been growing my own berries for years and am fortunate that all my bushes are so prolific. We harvest boxes and boxes of berries every summer.
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- My raspberry bushes – red, golden, and black – are located outside my main greenhouse where there is lots of room. This section is also right behind my flower cutting garden, where they can be accessed easily. This photo was taken in early July…
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- … when the bushes were all lush and exploding with delicious berries.
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- Summer-bearing raspberry bushes produce one crop each season. The fruits typically start ripening in late June into July with a crop that lasts about one month. Botanically, the raspberry is a shrub belonging to the Rosaceae family, in the genus Rubus.
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- The raspberry is made up of small “drupe” fruits which are arranged in a circular fashion around a hollow central cavity. Each drupelet features a juicy pulp with a single seed.
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- Raspberry leaves are alternate, compound with three to five leaflets and serrate margins. They are usually broader than other berry leaves and light greenish white in color.
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- But in order to have beautiful and productive berry bushes like these, one must maintain them and prune them regularly.
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- One big chore we always do during these colder months, oftentimes in between other farm projects, is prune all of the berry bushes that grow in the gardens around my main greenhouse. Here’s Brian pruning the black raspberries, cutting down the dead wood from the base. He also keeps the base of the bushes within a 12 to 18-inch footprint by pruning out any suckers that poke up outside those parameters.
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- Black raspberries are identifiable by their purple canes. Raspberries are unique because their roots and crowns are perennial, while their stems or canes are biennial. A raspberry bush can produce fruit for many years.
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- Black raspberries are more challenging to prune because their canes are quite long.
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- Here, Brian lines up the long canes along the wire to train them where to grow. Raspberry plants spread by suckers and will spread out far and wide if allowed. Unpruned raspberry bushes will still grow, but won’t yield more berries. Leaving them unpruned also makes them more prone to disease.
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- Raspberries bear fruit on two-year old canes, the canes that sprouted last season. Here, they look much better.
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- Brian also pruned the red raspberry and golden raspberry bushes. He pruned all the dead, old, weak, diseased, and damaged canes at ground level first.
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- This is a dead cane – brown and woody.
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- Most of the canes were trimmed just to the wire, so they grow properly and can be supported as they mature.
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- What’s left is the vigorous second year growth now about two feet up from the ground.
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- At the ends of each row of berries are these upright posts made of granite. They have heavy gauge copper wire laced through them to support the berry bushes. The wire can be tightened or loosened depending on the need.
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- I like to use copper wiring. The copper looks much prettier than other metal wire, but the advantage of using wire at all is that it will not loosen or wear out over time in the way that twine does.
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- This aisle just outside my main greenhouse looks great. Once they are trimmed, everything looks uniform and level. We should have a good berry season this summer.
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- These bushes were also pruned – they look very different without all their leaves. There’s lots of work to do around this busy farm, but one by one the tasks are getting done.
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