Raspberry
Rubus idaeus
Summer-caning bramble — a clove of garlic nearby wards its pests.
- Type
- Fruit · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Red
- Sunlight
- Full sun to part shade
- Watering
- Moderate
- Soil
- Rich, slightly acidic, moist
- Feeding
- A spring feed under a thick compost mulch.
- USDA zones
- 3a–9b
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- April
- Pruning
- Cut the fruited canes back after harvest, timed to the type you grow.
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- First harvest
- 100 days after the last spring frost
- Harvest ends
- 30 days before the first fall frost
- Mar–Apr Bud Break
- Apr–May Flowering
- May–Jun Fruit Set
- Jun–Jul Harvest
- Jul–Oct Growing
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 19.7 in
- In-row spacing
- 17.7 in
- Between rows
- 5 ft 11 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- A perennial crown that suckers
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 3–5 ft across, about 1.5–2.5× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 20 in of soil
The canes live two years and the root system does not. It throws new canes from roots wandering well outside the row, which is the plant working exactly as intended and a steady nuisance in a small bed. Slice them off with a spade each spring.
New canes come up from wandering roots well outside the row, which is the plant spreading as designed. Run a spade down each side of the row in spring, and lift the strays as free plants.
The habit is Raspberry’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- When
- Summer-fruiting varieties crop late June–July on last year's canes; autumn (primocane) varieties from August to first frost on this year's canes. First proper crop in the second season for summer types.
- What to look for
- Deep, even color for the variety (red, gold, or black), and the berry slides off the central plug (receptacle) with the gentlest pull, leaving the plug behind. If you have to tug, it isn't ripe.
- How to harvest
- Cup the berry and pull gently with fingertips — no tools needed. The fruit is hollow and fragile, so lay berries no more than two or three deep in a shallow container.
- How often
- Every 1–2 days in warm weather; every 2–3 days otherwise. Berries ripen successively along the cane over several weeks.
- Storing the crop
- Very perishable — refrigerate immediately and eat within 2 days. One of the best fruits for freezing: open-freeze on a tray, then bag; they hold shape better than strawberries. Also superb for jam.
Garlic, Tansy, Marigolds, Turnips
Good neighbors
A raspberry is a cluster of tiny fruits; pick it and it slips off its core, leaving a hollow.
Green-leaved fruit with red flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com