Raspberry canes

The raspberry canes have finally arrived. And not a moment too soon, either. They were scheduled to turn up somewhere in the ludicrously wide window of ‘November to March’, and with March quickly running out I was having doubts that’s ever be delivered.

But delivered they were, and this morning I set out to get them planted. There’s something quite invigorating about digging the garden before work.

Raspberries are both easy to grow and quite prolific croppers. New plants usually arrive as single canes that you plant into the ground about 50cm apart. As they grow, you need to support them with wire and garden canes and, when they’ve finished cropping, cut them back to allow for new growth the next year around.

They should keep on cropping for about 10 to 12 years, after which they need to be replaced.

They don’t look at all impressive when you first put them in, as you can see from the picture above, but with each cane producing on average half a kilo of fruit, we should – hopefully – get somewhere in the region of five kilos of raspberries from our ten canes over the course of the year, which is more than enough for desserts, freezing and plenty of jars of jam.

Related posts:

1. Three years of raspberry growth
2. How much space do raspberry plants need?
3. Tidying up the raspberry plants for winter