How to grow them
Plant bare-root canes in winter, 45cm apart, and cut them down to 25cm. Summer varieties need posts and wires, and fruit on last year's canes. Autumn varieties fruit on this year's and need no support.
Fruit and perennials
Raspberries
A row will crop for ten years. Autumn-fruiting kinds are the simplest: cut everything to the ground in February.
- Buy as
- Bare-root canes
- Space
- 45cm between plants, 180cm between rows
- Position
- Sun or light shade
- Rotation
- Permanent bed
- Difficulty
- Easy
The year
Plant
Harvest
When to pick
Pick when the fruit pulls away easily from the plug. Summer kinds crop in June and July, autumn kinds from August to the frosts.
What goes wrong
Problems, and what to do
Birds
Net summer varieties.
Raspberry beetle
Small grubs in the fruit. Autumn varieties mostly escape it.
Suckers everywhere
Dig out canes that come up outside the row.
Good neighbours: Garlic, Marigolds.
Same family
More from fruit and perennials
StrawberriesThe plants crop well for three years. Peg down runners to make new ones for free.
BlackcurrantsOne bush gives four or five kilos of fruit, and it asks for almost nothing.
GooseberriesThe first fruit of the summer, and happy in a shadier corner.
RhubarbPlant it once in a corner and it will outlast your tenancy.
AsparagusTwo years of patience, then twenty years of spears every May.