Rasberries

Rasberries are done and ready for the season.

Pruning, weeding, a top layer of compost (2 bags gave a 1-2" layer for a 1' x 50' bed), and then fertilizer. The fertilizer was put together by Amber - it's a recipe from a great book: Steve Solomon's "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades".

This is the second full spring for this bunch of rasberries. Last year was a bit disappointing in terms of yield. It was good enough for lots of munching, but barely enough to also supply preserves in the freezer. I'm not sure about this year yet... but I'm pretty sure that next year will be fantastic - the root system has spread throughout the bed and new shoots are coming up all over the place. By year four we may need to thin the bed out.

Rasberries

Got the Rasberry prepped for the season! Weeding was minimal, then I laid down Dr. Earth Fruit Tree Fertilizer 7-4-2. It took a whole box to cover of the entire 50' row (1lb per 10 feet). Once that was done I put a 2-3 inch layer of Cedar Grove compost on top. (used about 1/3 of a yard). I've read several methods for taking care of rasberries.... since this is a new bed, the method I decided to go with was laying down fertilizer, followed by a 2-3 inch layer of compost on top.

Other than getting the irrigation system in, the rasberries are now good to go.

Some history...

During October of last year, my boss (Bruce) wanted to shrink his (huge) garden so that it would be more manageable. So we were the beneficiary of enough raspberry stalks to fill about half the bed of the (F150) truck.

I built a post and wire support system using 4x4's and 14 gauge galvanized wire & straining bolts, based on a design from the book The Fruit Expert, by Dr. D. G. Hessayon. Bruce turned me onto this book- it's fantastic. It (and it's companion book about vegetables & herbs) is actually geared towards England- but they have a very similar climate to us. It is *dense* with great information and illustrations.

Once the post and wire system was in place, I built short raised bed that would allow us to import some planting mix to combine with the not-so-good dirt that was already present. A bonus is that the post & wire support system doubles as a perimeter fence for the edge of the property... which is a 4' drop off of a retaining wall. We populated an entire 50' row with Raspberries! (well over half the width of our property)

These are Heritage Raspberries, which are ever bearing... so the should have two crops, the first crop matures around the beginning of July, and the second crop ripens after September 1st, continuing until first frost. (yum!)

The fruit is huge, and both disease and drought resistant.; and even better- they're thornless!

The canes of raspberries are biennial- so the new canes produced one year yield fruit during the second year. I'll have to study a bit more when the time comes for pruning.