Raspberry Canes

I have had my raspberry canes for about 9years and they usually give me lots of fruit, but the last two years have been very poor. I wondered if I should replace them with new ones.Does anyone know how long rasps last?

 

Mine are not cropping as well as they used to either, so will be interested in replys.

 

HI PETE, HI DALBUIE,I AM AFRAID ITS THE SAME STORY IN LEICESTER. my 6 raspberry canes had a very poor yield. I had about 1 lb this year.

 

Hi All,
Don't want to rub it in but we've had about 20lb of our early rasps and they are very old plants. I inherited them whith the allotment. All that I do is give them a good old feed of farmyard muck in the early winter after I have cut the old fruiting canes out, tie the new growth in so that the winter storms don't reek havock and reep the harvest the following year. If your soil is fertile you shouldn't need to do much more, unless you have a pest problem! Have they sent out plenty of new growth for next years crop?

BigT

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http://brassicabill.blogspot.com

 

Hi Big T, there is quite a bit of growth and they do look healthy enough, I have a lot of ground elder growing at the base of them I try my hardest to keep it under control but it's very persistant, so it might be a feeding problem.20lb of rasps!, I'm very jealouse
Thanks
Carol

 

I don't think the ground elder would have caused a problem, I used to have a raspberry patch covered in it and the raspberries always fruited well. When I finally removed it all and put down black membrane the raspberries didn't like it at all, I think they were too hot.
I'm wondering if the heat has been a problem, raspberries usually don't like full sun unless in a big patch to shade each other.

 

Hi, Im thinking of planting some rasps, I have a plot of approx 8 foot by 3 foot. How many canes would I need and when is best to plant ?

 

I didn't think my raspberries would do too well this year as they seemed a bit sparse however; they have eventually produced a very good crop (still going strong) but the taste this year is not up to standard

 

I have 4 rows of rasps with about 20 canes a row and we picked around 56pounds of fruit : which is slightly better than last year which was better than any prior year.
Most of our canes are now over 9 years old and starting to die out so I dig out the dead or failing ones, dig in fresh compost and plant new canes (from ones that grow outside the rows!) in the place of the removed ones.

I have done this for over 20 years and as long as I water the new canes well when planted they take and produce new fruit in 2 years.

Each row is about 5metres long x 1 wide.

The more compost I use as a mulch the better they produce.

Because of the drought we had cracks in the ground about 500cm long by 3cm wide by 15cm deep and many of the new canes this year did not grow to full height in the summer but they now are catching up : I did not water them in the summer: too far away for a hose and I was too busy watering the flowers.

A does of sulphate of iron/ wood ash and soluble feed in early September after rain seems to have had the desired effect.