If your summer raspberries have finished fruiting, it's time to get the secateurs out. A proper prune now is what gets you a good crop next year, and it only takes half an hour.
Summer or autumn fruiting?
There are two types of raspberry and they're pruned differently, so it's worth knowing which you've got. The easiest way to tell is when you picked them. Fruit in June and July means summer fruiting. Fruit from late August until the frosts means autumn fruiting.
- Summer fruiting (floricane) raspberries fruit on canes that grew the year before.
- Autumn fruiting (primocane) raspberries fruit on canes that grew this year.
Pruning summer fruiting raspberries
Do this as soon as you've finished picking, usually in August. Cut every cane that fruited this year right down to ground level. They're easy to spot because they've gone brown and woody.
Leave the new green canes alone, because they're next year's fruit. Take out any weak or spindly ones at ground level so the strongest have room, then tie the rest into your supports.
Finish with some slow release fertiliser, or a good water with a liquid feed, to help the new canes along.
Join the P2G Garden Club and we’ll email you each week’s deal, plus the month’s garden jobs. Free to join, unsubscribe any time.
Join the Garden ClubPruning autumn fruiting raspberries
These are even easier. They fruit from late August right up to the first frosts, all on this year's canes, so once they've finished you simply cut every cane down to ground level. Late winter, around February, is the usual time.
Give them a slow release feed in spring and a whole new set of canes will come up and fruit for you that autumn.
Is raspberry beetle getting at your fruit?
If you've ever picked a raspberry and found a little grub inside, that's raspberry beetle. The adults lay their eggs in the flowers in early summer, and the larvae feed inside the ripening fruit, which goes brown and dry at the stalk end. Not a nice surprise in your crumble.
Once they've finished feeding, the larvae drop into the soil to spend the winter there. Lightly rake or hoe the soil under your canes through autumn and winter to bring them up to the surface, and the birds will happily clear them up for you.
Happy gardening,
Lou
