Raspberries in the garden, from planting raspberries to harvesting, helpful tips
Raspberry berry, bright and aromatic, attracts attention with its high taste and healing properties. It is useful for adults and children, its systematic use enriches the body with vitamins and minerals, even a couple of spoons of raspberry jam a day during the winter can prevent the occurrence of colds or infection with viral infections. Raspberries in the garden are found in almost every suburban area, its unpretentiousness, ability to produce crops in the year of planting, and fruitfulness until late autumn are attractive to gardeners.
Content:
- Planting raspberries - how to choose the right site video
- Raspberry planting recommendations video
- When and how to prune raspberries video
- What to consider when choosing a method of growing raspberries
- Raspberry growing - secrets from experienced gardeners to help you get high yields
- Raspberries
Planting raspberries - how to choose the right site
To determine the best place to plant raspberries, you can observe where it grows in the wild. These are forest glades and woodlands, forest edges, i.e. the places are well-lit; in winter, snow drifts accumulate on them, providing an excellent wintering for plants. Similar conditions should be created for the raspberries that will be planted in the garden.
Experts do not recommend allocating a strip along the fence for raspberries.
The best option would be to plant bushes compactly in the corner of the garden, on a site protected from strong winds, with good enough sunlight. When choosing a place, one should also focus on the territory with a deep occurrence (more than 1.5 m) of groundwater - raspberries will not tolerate waterlogged soil.
It will not be possible to get a good result even if the terrain of the site is marshy or saline. Poor fruiting will occur on heavy clay soils. You can determine in advance the suitability of a site for planting raspberries by the way any fruit trees grow on it, their normal development is a guarantee that raspberry bushes will also be comfortable.
It is not recommended to break raspberries on the southern slopes of the hills - such places warm up well during thaws in winter, long thaws and root warming contribute to a decrease in winter hardiness of the plant, with the return of frost, especially if the temperature drops below -20 C, warmed plants can be badly damaged - get frostbite more parts of the shoots.
Beginning gardeners should take into account that with frequent watering with a small amount of water, plants will form surface roots, with rare and plentiful watering, a part of the root system, which lies in deep soil layers, will be more actively formed.
Raspberry planting recommendations
To prepare the site for landing you will need:
- remove from it all weeds together with rhizomes,
- make organic and mineral fertilizers,
- dig the whole plot,
- destroy the larvae of the horsetail found in the ground.
Experienced gardeners advise using activated compost as organic fertilizers.
The hole in which the bush will be planted should have a diameter of about 30 cm and a depth of 30-35 cm. Before planting it is filled with a mixture of humus, manure, rotten straw and foliage about half. If it is unlikely that several bushes will be planted, then you can dig out not individual holes, but a trench and make fertilizers in it. This method of planting is even more effective - raspberry roots grow quickly and can occupy a fairly large space - in a radius of about 2 m around the bush, it would be nice if most of it is fertilized.
If the soil is sandy and very poor, it is recommended to dig a ditch half a meter wide and the same depth, fill it with a mixture of soil with nutrients: humus, last year's foliage residues, twigs, it will be able to give more complete nutrition to plants through the root system developing in its thickness. The bottom of the moat, to retain moisture, you can fill up 2-3 cm with a layer of red clay.
With increased acidity, you can add to the soil when digging up to 200 grams of lime-fluff per 1 sq. M area of \u200b\u200braspberry. Also useful will be wood ash brought into the ground.
It is best to plant raspberries in the fall, in late September - early October. In this case, it will have time to take root well, and at the beginning of spring it will be ready for full development and active growth. If the raspberry planting is planned for spring, then this should be done early, when the condition of thawed soil allows.
The recommended row spacing, regardless of whether the bushes will be planted singly or in a common trench, should be about one and a half meters, the distance between the bushes should be about 0.5-0.7 m. It is recommended to deepen the seedling into the ground about 5-7 cm deeper than he grew up in the previous place. This point is not difficult to determine, part of the stem located above the soil surface has a different color and the border is visible quite clearly.
Before planting, the roots of each seedling are straightened, carefully laid in a moistened hole and covered with soil, trampled. Then comes the time of watering, it is recommended to pour at least 10 liters of water under each bush. After the water is absorbed, the ground should be covered with a layer of mulch, which can be used as fallen needles, straw, peat or humus.
The mulch will be effective in that case, its layer will have a thickness of about 6-8 cm. It is desirable to lay a 10 cm layer of mulch on the aisles - this will allow:
- keep the soil loose throughout this season,
- prevent active evaporation of moisture,
- inhibit seedlings and weed growth.
Planted bushes should be trimmed by 25-30 cm. Cut shoots cannot be completely cut off - substances accumulated by the plant that contribute to the growth of the root system are stored in the lower part of the shoots, in addition, low pruning can inhibit the appearance of substitution shoots, which ultimately leads to plant death.
During the autumn planting of raspberries, the plants are spudled, while the stem is covered with at least 10 cm. This simple procedure will help to save all the lower buds.
When and how to prune raspberries
Raspberry fruiting begins on two-year-old shoots: shoots grow actively in the first year, and flower buds are laid in autumn. At the end of fruiting, they begin to dry out. Drying shoots should not be removed seasonally, but as they appear. Cleaning the bushes in the summer will allow for more active growth of young shoots, which are called substitution shoots.
With the onset of spring, one-year-old shoots will need to be cut to 15-20 cm. In this case, they are guided by the location of the first large kidney on top. Shortening the shoots causes more active branching and contributes to the formation of larger berries. The second positive point - the shortening of the branches makes them more stable and they will not lean towards the ground under the weight of the pouring fruit.
Overwintered, but with damage and weak shoots, must be completely removed in spring. In the fall, all deflated shoots are subject to complete removal.
What to consider when choosing a method of growing raspberries
To date, four methods of growing raspberries are practiced:
- tape, when the width of the stands reaches 30-40 cm,
- nesting, with placement in rows of single bushes,
- on trellises
- without the use of shoot garter.
Tape option cultivation involves the formation of a wide strip of shoots, form it due to the root offspring of uterine bushes. Depending on the activity of branching the shoots and the height, their number is regulated: it is desirable that the remaining number of shoots makes it possible to get the maximum number of fruits, while allowing each branch to receive enough sunlight and heat.
Since modern raspberry varieties have significant differences in the height of fruit branches, their number and branching, one should approach the formation of ribbons from shoots taking into account the characteristics of each of the varieties.
Nesting method usually used if the beds are very small. A separate peg is used to garter each bush. The recommended distance between the bushes is one and a half meters, but it can increase depending on the length of the shoots that the planted variety gives. It is not difficult to take care of such plantings; problems can arise if heavy rains occur during the fruiting period - the bushes are poorly ventilated and the berries inside them can be affected by mold.
When growing raspberries on a trellis narrow tape seedlings are planted in a row at a given distance, a certain distance between the rows is also maintained. The method will require the installation of supports along each row and the manufacture of trellis, which is usually a well-tensioned metal wire.
Care is:
- in the uniform distribution of substitution shoots along the wire,
- removal of prolific sprigs at the level of the soil surface - it will no longer be possible to get berries from them, but they will thicken the bush and take away some of the nutrients from it,
- removing excess root shoots with a sharp shovel or secateurs - a large amount of it can significantly reduce productivity.
The method allows to preserve the individuality of each bush, to achieve its high-quality illumination, and, consequently, an excellent harvest. Also significantly reduces the need for processing plants from pests and diseases.
The least effective in practice is growing raspberries without garter:
- shoots form dense thickets,
- branches with the crop lie on the ground, causing damage to the berries,
- strong shading reduces the very possibility of laying buds on the shoots.
If, when growing the same large-fruited variety on trellis, you can get about 200 kg of berries, then with a garter to stakes, the yield will decrease by about 3 times, and if grown without a garter, by 6 times.
Raspberry growing - secrets from experienced gardeners to help you get high yields
Gardeners who have recently started growing raspberries often complain about failures:
- berries damage insects
- the bushes grow poorly, or vice versa
- shoots grow extremely actively, but do not bear fruit.
In this case, the variety is usually accused, attempts are made to replace the plants with new ones. But before taking drastic measures, one should analyze the cause, maybe it’s not at all in the variety, but in the wrong care?
raspberry care - the timing of top dressing and watering
To ensure the active development and fruiting of the raspberry bush, it should be provided with nutrient components and water. Therefore, a mandatory procedure should be the introduction of a sufficient amount of organic and mineral fertilizers into the soil. The main ones are potash and nitrogen, phosphorus should not exceed 1/3 of the applied potash and nitrogen. Feeding with slurry can be performed:
- the first - during the period of budding,
- the second - after 10 days,
- the third - after another 2 weeks.
After fruiting, the plant will also need to replenish nutrients. During this period, you can use liquid top dressing, with the following composition:
- potassium sulfate - 15 g,
- double superphosphate - 30 g,
- water - 10 l.
As a top dressing, you can use a solution of nitroammophoski, mullein, diluted in a ratio of 1: 6, chicken manure, diluted 1:12. First, the plant is watered abundantly, then nutrient mixtures are introduced, about 2 liters under each bush.
For normal fruiting during the season, you need to perform 3-4 dressings and 6-7 full irrigation. Watering should be carried out throughout the season, in a timely manner, in quantities that allow you to keep the soil moist.
It is also useful to introduce wood, obtained from hardwood, ash in an amount of 200 g per 1 sq. M of area.
raspberry cultivation - how to loosen the soil
Loosening of beds with the onset of the first spring after after planting is carried out at the earliest possible date - so as not to harm the emerging root processes. The depth of cultivation in the rows should be about 6-8 cm, in the row-spacing - up to 12 cm. During the summer, weeding can be repeated several times, as a crust forms after watering and germination of weeds, but the maximum depth of cultivation should not exceed 5 cm.
Before wintering, the site is dug up - in rows to a depth of 10 cm, in row-spacings - by 15 cm. It is necessary to ensure that when digging, the skeletal roots of the plants are not damaged, it is best to dig not with a shovel but with a pitchfork. Overgrowth should be constantly removed during the season, only the planted bushes should remain. The thickening of the planting also results in chopping of the fruit, as the shoots formed from the roots can take up to 50% of nutrients and moisture from plants.
The best option is to leave about 7 substitution shoots for each bush - this will allow you to get berries of a sufficiently large size during each collection.
Experts say that raspberry bushes are not prone to complete degeneration, but the root buds on them can mutate, usually for the worse. This negative phenomenon can be noted during flowering - the sepals will be non-elongated. Tip - such bushes should be completely removed - large-fruited varieties should initially have elongated sepals. For repair raspberry varieties, this change is not significant.
wintering features
Since it is practically impossible to predict how cold the winter will be, when raspberries are grown in the middle zone, it will be necessary to take care of its reliable protection against frostbite.
Such a simple trick as bending the shoots to the ground and fixing them above the soil surface using improvised means (boards, logs, metal staples) will allow raspberries to fill up raspberries without any problems in the winter with a thickness of half a meter. Bushes thus prepared are practically prone to frostbite; in practice, it has been proven that they can withstand even severe Siberian winters. Raspberries should be opened at a time when the threat of late frost passes.
harvest
The ripening of the first raspberry crop begins in late June.
This happens throughout the month. Since raspberries are distinguished by very delicate fruits not intended for long-term storage, the berries should be harvested systematically, as they ripen, without overexposing them to the stems.
Raspberries
If you want to breed new varieties of raspberries, you will have to buy seedlings. It is best to contact specialized nurseries - planting material there is of a fairly high quality.
If suitable varieties are already grown on the site, then you can use the vegetative method of propagation and use bushes formed from root processes. In addition, you can perform the usual division of the bush into several parts, but the bushes for this should choose the most powerful. The processes for transplantation should be chosen those that have a shoot thickness of more than 1 cm and a sponge-like, dense root system.
The productive period of raspberry bushes is from 12 to 20 years, while the features of raspberry varieties, proper care, frost resistance and quality of soil treatment play a role.
