Planting Raspberries - Need help Please.

[drewskimac]

Hello all, I will be planting my first ever raspberries at the end of the month. Well, I say my first ever, but i've been propagating "wild" wineberries for years. These are a bit different though, they'll grow out of a rock.

These are the 3 varieties I will be planting:

2X - Black Hawk Black Raspberry
2X - Lantham Red Raspberry
2X - Anne Gold Raspberry

My questions:

- How far apart should I plant these? And in which order? (ex: Black hawk, Lantham, Gold - OR keep the same varieties side by side?)

I'll attach a picture of the type of raised bed i'll be putting them in. I pulled the pic of google, but I'm building an identical bed. Obviously my plant's arent beautiful like the ones pictured, right now theyre sticks with a couple of leaves....

 

[drewskimac]

Figured I would share an update of what came about of my raspberry bed - The blackhawk black raspberries and anne golds have mostly taken over. They have LOADS of berries on them. The latham reds are doing ok, but not as well as the others. The bed looks like a big mess, but it seems like there is no good way to make a raspberry bramble look organized.

 

[Duckstail]

You just inspired me to grow raspberries thank you

 

[drewskimac]

You just inspired me to grow raspberries thank you

I love to hear that! Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to answer them based on what I did.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Sorry you never got an answer to your original post! It looks like you did alright though! Those raspberries sure look like they're thriving! My grandma had a fairly large raspberry patch and now my brother and his fiance are living there they've kept it. They got tons of raspberries last year. It hasn't really been like maintained or whatever though, although they did recently rake it out, but it still has weeds and stuff, but seems to me like maybe that is inevitable with raspberries though? Anyways, I will have to get a picture of it sometime because it's a fairly large patch. We have wild raspberries and I think blackberries here and what I think is a blueberry bush but idk. I would like to control the raspberries or maybe dig them up and start over. They are all over the yard and in some annoying places. Ha. idk.

 

[drewskimac]

I agree that it seems like the are nearly impossibly to maintain in a near and orderly fashion. Here we have wild black Berries and “Japanese wine berries” which are a type of raspberry. I consider the wine berries a blessing - they are delicious and plentiful! I actually went to the extent to cultivate them.

 

[ShrekDawg]

I want to grow raspberries but I'm not sure I could handle that part I'd either want there to be no weeds or I'd be afraid there would be poison ivy or ticks or bees or snakes or something in the patch? Idk how anyone collects the berries haha plus the thorns

But I love raspberries.

And hmm.. I wonder if we don't actually have june berries.. but it started years ago when I think I got raspberries at the fair, never planted them, left it under the deck, and it totally took off haha

 

[drewskimac]

I can tell you that my patch is so thick that there isn’t weeds. There were weeds last season bc the bushes were sparse and young. This year they are so thick, there is no room for weeds to grow. However, the New Years growth (canes) still climb up above the foliage with no problem. Since my patch is raised, I’m not terrible concerned about snakes.

There is 100% no getting around the thorns... unless you’re smarter than me and choose a thornless variety

 

[ShrekDawg]

Thanks, that makes sense. Maybe once there's leaf up/grow in the weeds will die? And the raised bed idea is a good one! I might need to do that ha

And hmm.. do the thornless ones taste as good I wonder?

 

[drewskimac]

From my research, the thornless are very comparable in flavor. I have thornless blackberries and their flavor is phenomenal. Yes, once the brambles grow up enough they will shade out the weeds!