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Autumn flowering raspberries sprouting far from canes
caithnessgirl
Posts: 2
in Fruit & veg
I have a row of autumn flowering rasps which I pruned in winter. They have started to sprout but virtually all the sprouts are far away from the canes- hardly any sports are near the canes. They are 3yr old & last year they did this & when so pulled the sprouts out, they did sprout again from the canes but I had no fruit. What am I doing wrong??? I can't leave the sprouts where they have come up as all over my veg patch....
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Posts
They throw up new canes for this years growth, wherever they find it convenient to grow. I think tbh that the only thing you can do is dig them out good and proper
I'm sure if I'm wrong, someone will be along to correct me
Raspberries do this all the time. They need a barrier to keep them from spreading all over the garden. The roots are shallow and from these the new sprouts emerge.
Could you do a few things?
1. Dig up the sprouting raspberries and replant them where you want them to grow.
2. Add some sort of barrier between the bed and your veg plot (overlapping vertical slabs of slate work well)
3. Mulch with well rotted compost/manure and give them a good feed. Make the soil in their bed desirable. Is it possible you treat the veg bed soil better? More fertilizer, water, etc?
Raspberries are related to brambles, hence the way they shoot up wherever they feel!
For autumn fruiting you should cut the old canes to ground level in February, if you don't you seem to get growth from the old canes which either doesn't fruit or fruits early and poorly. If you cut them back the growth comes from the ground next to the canes which is what you need. If you haven't cut last years canes down already do it ASAP and you should still get new shoots and fruit this year - I think it was June last year before I realised my mistake and still got a crop so don't panic!
I grow mine in a half whisky barrel which controls the spread, the shoots next to where the old canes were are stronger and bigger than the shoots everywhere else in the barrel as you would expect.
Note that raspberries like slightly acidic soil - my dad has terrible trouble growing them in his fruit cage where he has obviously managed the soil, but has wild raspberries growing outside the cage in an area that used to have pine trees. I have suggested to him a couple of times that soil ph might be his problem but you know how parents can be