Small and sweet: raspberries are a real treat on hot summer days. With these ten tips, the delicious berries will also thrive in your garden.
Raspberries are just delicious - whether freshly picked, on desserts or made into jam. We have summarized what you should consider when growing raspberries in your garden in the following 10 tips.
Tip 10: Summer or Autumn?
Raspberries are part of summer? Not quite: there are now a whole range of raspberry varieties that only bear fruit in autumn. The summer raspberries are often more productive and taste more intense, but the autumn raspberries are catching up in terms of taste and are less susceptible to pests and diseases. So if you want to enjoy fresh raspberries in summer as well as in autumn, you can simply use different raspberry varieties. If that is too exhausting for you, you will find a suitable alternative with the two-timer varieties. This hybrid of summer and autumn raspberries often produces numerous fruits in both early summer and autumn.
Tip 9: The right location
Even though the raspberry is a forest plant, it doesn't like the shade. The plant thrives best in sunny locations - after all, it also prefers sunny clearings and forest edges in nature. Although the raspberry also thrives on nutrient-poor soil, it bears significantly more fruit on nutrient-rich soil. If the soil is also permeable so that no waterlogging can occur, the raspberry will do twice as well. The Plantura organic tomato & vegetable soil, for example, is ideal for growing berries. In order to prevent diseases, care should be taken when replanting that there were no blackberries or raspberries on the area beforehand. Potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and aubergines are also not good predecessors - they are susceptible to Verticillium wilt, which can spread to raspberries.
Tip 8: Hit the Wall
Raspberries are very susceptiblefor root rot. Creating a small dam is a good way to ensure that they can thrive in the garden despite sub-optimal soil conditions. First, the existing subsoil should be loosened. Then fill in an approximately 30 cm high and 60 cm wide embankment of humus-rich soil. You can now place your raspberry plants in the middle of this small wall. Incidentally, raspberries in a pot can be used almost all year round. However, autumn is ideal, so the plants are more likely to bear fruit in the following summer.
Tip 7: Jungle Gym
In good conditions, the raspberries literally grow over your head: the prickly bush can grow up to two meters high. But with this stately size, the plant often finds it difficult to carry its own weight. A climbing aid helps. The tendrils can climb up on this and grow expansively in width. Since the raspberry can bear fruit for up to ten years, you should pay attention to weatherproof, durable material when building the climbing aid. Otherwise the raspberry survives its home. A simple solution is trellis made of wood and rope. At the ends of each row of raspberries, posts are driven into the ground and cords are stretched between them at a height of 50 cm, 80 cm, 110 cm and possibly 140 cm. To create a little more order, the shoots can also be attached to the cords by hand (for example with wires). If you now choose different colors for the one- or two-year-old shoots, you also simplify cutting.
Tip 6: Fertilizer and Water
Raspberries like it moist, but not wet. So they look forward to one or the other watering can in summer. However, overzealous watering leads to waterlogging and, in the worst case, to disease or rot. The plant also benefits from fertilizer: A good fertilizer - for example our Plantura organic tomato fertilizer - can help a little, especially in the weeks before the harvest. From June, however, the plant should prepare for the winter and no longer be fertilized. Organic fertilizer is particularly suitable for supplying the plant with nutrients. Pre-rotted, their nutrients are quickly available and even stimulate soil life.
Learn how to fertilize raspberries in this article.
Tip 5: Use the scissors
From time to time the raspberry has to go to the hairdresser. The right cut is largely dependent on the variety. Summer raspberries only bear fruit on the two-year-old shoots, so these should never be removed. However, autumn raspberries already bear fruit on the new shoots, which is why you can cut the plant back completely every year. In early spring, around 20 freshly sprouted canes per meter can then be selected, the rest being cut off at ground level. Summer raspberries, on the other hand, should be cut in mid-May. Here the ten strongest shoots are selected, the rest are also cut back to ground level. If the tendrils of both varieties point over the highest trellis wire, they can also be pruned in late autumn. This promotes the formation of new shoots.
You can find out more about cutting raspberries in this article.
Tip 4: Green Carpet
The ground around wild forest raspberries is covered with old foliage most of the year. So it's no wonder that the garden raspberry doesn't object to a nice layer of mulch. The mulch layer not only insulates the soil, so there are fewer temperature fluctuations. It also keeps the moisture in the soil, so the raspberry has it nice and moist, just the way it likes it. A layer of lawn clippings or autumn leaves is most suitable for the raspberry. These not only have the advantage that they accumulate in the garden for free and would otherwise end up in the compost. In addition, they enrich the soil with humus and nutrients as it rots and thus serve as a natural fertilizer.
Tip 3: Harvest time
You've waited all spring and are looking forward to the first fresh raspberries. But when will the time finally come? Even if the harvest time depends on many factors, a rough guide is the period from June to July for summer raspberries and August to the first frost for autumn raspberries. However, it is best to rely on your senses. When the berries are evenly and brightly colored and you smell a delicious scent, it's time to grab the collection basket. The raspberries should also come off easily. The size of the berries, on the other hand, is not decisive. Once the berries have reached their rich hue, they will stop growing even if left on the vine. Instead, they begin to rotor are eaten by animals, which would be a pity for the sweet fruits.
You can find out more about picking and harvesting raspberries in this article.
Tip 2: Raspberries from the balcony?
The raspberry is purely a garden plant? Wrong thought! Even if not all varieties are suitable for growing in pots, there are now breeds that also delight balcony gardeners. These grow particularly upright and with comparatively short shoots, so that they also thrive in pots if you follow a few tips. The bucket should be large enough (at least 25L) to accommodate the roots. Your pitch should be very sunny and sheltered from the wind to prevent the plant from tipping over. The ideal place for a raspberry potted plant is therefore in front of a south-facing wall. If you follow these few tips, you can soon be snacking comfortably from the balcony.
Tip 1: Raspberries for the whole year
Summer is over, autumn is almost over and the last raspberries have been harvested. Now it's time to eat quickly, after all the fresh berries don't keep for long. But stop: If you want to enjoy the fruit in winter, you can easily preserve your raspberries. Frozen, they keep forever and hardly lose their taste. Before freezing, the raspberries should be thoroughly sorted and washed again. Moldy or eaten berries do not belong in the bag. Thoroughly drained so that no unnecessary ice crystals form, the raspberries can then wait in portions in the freezer to be used.
