Raspberry growth Q

Last year planted 6 Raspberry plants, all in a nice line evenly spaced .. and they cropped OK.
Cut them back at end of the year.
This year there are a number of 'shoots' of what I would call new plants coming up about 18" away from the main plant line, are these like roses ... i.e sucker shoots, and I should cut them off ...

Or do I bend them back to reach support wires and accept them.

 

You can dig down and cut them off with some root and replant where you want them,it's a good way to increase your stock

 

Yikes! I just spent the morning removing all the suckers and tidying up last year's stalks!

Oh well, time will tell if I get any fruit this year!

Got none the first two years - birds got'm all!

 

Raspberry canes should be cut down to the ground after flowering and new suckers will come up to bear new fruit (Summer fruiting sucker this year, and carry fruit next year [and then you cut those down], Autumn fruiting sucker and bear fruit all in one season, so basically for that variety/type all canes get cut to the ground at the end of the season)

 

Not enough canes (assuming you have room?). I have lots of canes - some for the birds, some for me. Otherwise you need a fruit cage (I'm mean, more canes is cheaper than a netting cage, and free if you use your own suckers, after year one, to bulk up your stock).

Plant the ones you dug out the other day, if still "around"?

 

When you say not enough canes..... How do you use them to deter birds please?

 

Hmmm I just googled to see if I could find pics, canes aren't what I'm thinking are they?! I was thinking bamboo canes?

 

Sorry, "canes" as in the stems that Raspberries throw up. Bamboo grows culms .... and then when they are cut down , bundled up and sold to gardeners they become called "Canes" for some reason ...

I put in 10 Raspberry "plants" originally, but I have 10 varieties (from 1st early around late June to mega-Late around November), so 100 plants in all, but I guess that two varieties are fruiting at any one time, so perhaps 20 plants "on the go". But they have spread and formed a thicket now, so "20 plants that have been around for 2 or 3 years" would be what I would aim for. Otherwise, even if you keep the birds off, you won't have enough productivity [from just 2 or 3 plants] for a meal.

I'd be interested to know how many plants folk have that they consider "enough for a meal". During the Summer we have lunch guest most weekends, so probably want enough Raspberries for, say, 8 people, and we pick mid-week for ourselves (2 - 4 of us depending if the kids are AWOL or not!).

 

""so 100 plants in all"" Wow I planted 1 black raspberry last week because it had one leaf and was marked down because it is well past planting time here, and because it is too hot for raspberries to even grow here. I am always amazed how sellers sell plants that will not do well, or even survive, here. Like cherries and things which will not get the frost hours to fruit. I live exactly on that line which separates the hot plants from the not hot plants - but on the hot side.

 

That's what I thought after Google images! Thanks for clarifying