How deep do the roots go- I know they are fairly shallow? I have awful soil neutral-alkaline, full of rubble and flint. The raised bed will be about 6inches deep and thought I could dig out the bottom a bit to go deeper if need be, but would rather not! My theory is the raspberries might think twice about sending runners if the soil is poor lol! 😂
Well they do say they have shallow roots, but the canes I got from Blackmore had really bushy roots 12”/30cm long (can’t remember but think the canes I planted at my last allotment had barely any roots). When I spread these out they probably went about 20cm deep. I have really crappy, stony alkaline clay, but made sleeper beds 40cm high, filled with ericaceous compost and oak leaf mould. Can you add another layer of timber maybe, to make it deeper and give you the scope to create the more acid conditions they like?
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
Flinster, I leave some of my autumn fruiters (mine are Autumn Bliss, but it works with them all I think) to produce early fruit. I cut most of the fruited canes down to the ground, leaving 1 or 2 strong canes per plant. Because mine grow in shade and get to about 8 feet, I cut the canes I'm leaving, to about 4 feet, otherwise I can't reach to pick the fruit... It certainly extends the season.
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
I keep reading that with autum raspberries you can leave some of the canes instead of cutting them and they will fruit early like summer fruiting, while the cut canes will fruit in autum as usual, then you alternate them so have a longer season. I don’t know how well this works and how it affects yields though.
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