When to cut raspberries, how to do it right and get an excellent harvest?

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Perhaps there is no such garden plots where at least a few raspberry bushes did not grow. Everyone knows about its useful qualities. Both kids and adults love her. But how to care for her, when to cut raspberries, fertilize, not everyone knows. Of course, this plant needs attention. This work is not so difficult, even a person far from gardening can do it.

It is known that raspberries are perennial shrubs. However, the life of each individual shoot is 2 years. The first year the stem grows, gaining strength. But in the second year it branches, yields and dies. From the root offspring, new stems grow to continue the life of the bush. In order not to break this order and get a bountiful harvest of the highest quality, annual pruning of plants is required. When should raspberries be trimmed?

1st pruning option - autumn

It is in September, after the harvest of berries, that the base of a new crop is laid. Shrub pruning is done in the fall to prepare the plant for winter. Fruiting branches should be removed. We start cutting with them. It is easy to distinguish them by the harder brownstem and branches. When the time has come to prune raspberries, you should not postpone this event, since it is impossible to reanimate old branches, they will still dry out and fall off.

But in this case, young stems are endangered. Cuts should be made closer to the base. It is also necessary to remove diseased, broken and weak shoots growing in the middle. Pruning raspberries will allow you to get rid of various infections, pest larvae and will enable new strong branches to develop more actively. For each meter, it is enough to leave 10-15 shoots. Any old cut branches should be removed from the site and burned immediately to prevent the spread of infection.

Wintering raspberries

The long remaining branches can be cut to 10-15 cm. Then it is advisable to tie the shoots to a support. If a snowless winter is expected, barriers are placed in the garden, shields to hold back snow. The resulting snowdrifts will protect the bushes from freezing. If the winter is frosty, it is recommended to pin the shoots to the ground with metal hooks. Then the snow will cover them and save them from freezing. Before wintering, all leaves are removed from the bush. This is easy to do by putting on a mitten on your hand, and then swiping the stem from the bottom up. The leaves will fall off, the kidneys will not be affected. The left leaves rot, damage the buds. Only after removing the leaves, raspberries are bent no higher than 50 cm from the ground and fixed.

2nd trim option

When to prune raspberries if not in autumn? It is possible to leave work with young shoots in the spring (after the snow melts). Plants are only prunedtops, bind them into sheaves and bend them to the ground. The advantage of this option is better snow retention and more accurate selection of strong branches.

With any pruning option in autumn, the soil is loosened, fertilized with manure, peat or compost, and mulched with sawdust. All these works should be done annually.

These variants are for regular raspberry varieties. However, there are remontant varieties, they have branching of the stem and fruiting occurs in the first year, continues into the next. When is the best time to prune remontant raspberries? There are various trimming methods available here. You can remove everything that has grown during the season. New shoots next year will give a new crop.

But this method does not allow using the full fruiting potential of raspberries. Not all berries will have time to ripen. Therefore, most often the bushes of this variety are cut like ordinary ones. Pruning remontant raspberries may well be done in the spring. Each gardener decides when to prune raspberries, at his own discretion, using not only the recommendations of agronomists, but also his personal experience.