I have a row of raspberries plants in my veg patch which were planted back in january. Along the row, shoots are coming up through. Should these be left alone to grow on or are they removed. This is my first year to grow raspberries so any help would be great!
Hi KevinO, these are your raspberry canes and should be allowed to grow. If they are an autumn variety they should grow to about 6 ft and fruit from about August on the current year's growth. They are cut down to ground level every year at February time. If summer fruiting, the canes are tied into supports and will fruit next year from late June onwards on the previous year's growth. The old fruiting canes are cut down after fruiting and new canes that have grown up are tied in to replace them and bear the following summer's crop. Hope this helps
Thats a great help thanks blackthorn. Hopefully i will remember all that. I have both summer and autumn fruiting varieties. The autumn fruiting varieties have no canes yet when will these appear
They should be about 2-3 ft high by now kevinO. Were they also planted in January? Try giving them a good watering if dry and a nice thick mulch of organic material. I use grass cuttings that have been in a 1m x 1m x 1m wooden box with a lid and stirred thoroughly every day for about 10 days, makes a fantastic raspberry mulch. If they still don't show, then I have no idea why not. Bad batch of plants maybe?
They were all planted in January. Planted them into a trench of manure, gave them a feed in March and put down a mulch. Thanks for that, thats a great tip for a mulch!