Raspberries

Soon we will be picking our raspberries. We currently grow 'FALL BEARING,' which start to produce in August and will go to hard frost. I prefer the care of the fall bearing over the 'SUMMER FRUITING' varieties and here is why:

• you mow or prune to the ground the entire plant every year
• so,,,,all the possible diseased plant tissue is removed from the growing area
• each new cane will grow and produce fruit the same year
• pound for pound - same end result as summer fruiting
• birds bother them less than summer fruiting as they are starting to eat more proteins as winter gets closer and more seeds are then available

Both kinds have their advantages. We will be adding some summer fruiting to the mix for earlier market sale. The summer fruiting bear fruit on canes that are one year old, so instead of having all canes beaaring fruit, only about 1/2 do. This years new canes are next years fruiting canes. So when you prune these types, only prune back hard a cane that has produced fruit. You can easily tell as the recepticles will still be on the tip of the cane. (not as easy as mowing them all down!)

The pic above was from my produce farm in Zumbrota. This is a pic of a 'root hairs' that were planted earlier that year. I was amazed that we picked fruit off these plants. The root hairs looked like a snarl of hair, so wasn't expecting much the first year.