Topic: Raspberries

[shirlton]

Last year I saw a tip about training raspberries and it said when they reach tthe top of the canes to make arches with the stems so that they hold each other up. It was disastrous cos they got too heavy and hung over almost making it impossible to pick the fruit. What do you do when your canes reach the top of the wire?

[saddad]

My autumn bliss are free standing... (most of the time...)  :)

[SMP1704]

Shirl - are you talking about summer fruiting raspberries?  If so, then I prune the top of all the canes in the spring, which encourages more side shoots and more fruit and it keeps them under control ::)

If autumn - what are you feeding them that they are so tall :o  Like Saddad's my Joan J are reasonably self supporting, mostly because they don't grow as tall.

Hope that helps

[shirlton]

Its the spring variety I'm on about. They have grown to about 8ft. I don't know wether or not I should cut em off at the top. Autumn raspberries look after em selves thank goodness

[SMP1704]

I picked up this tip about taking the top 12" or so off of each summer fruiting cane from RHS and it does work - rather than a clump of fruit at the very top, each cane threw out loads of side branches, which fruited.