Grow raspberries in beds or containers
Image: Raspberry ‘Polka’ from Thompson & Morgan
If you want to grow your own raspberry plants, take a look through this selection of the best independent articles and videos from the internet. These garden bloggers, YouTubers and Instagrammers show you how to enjoy huge raspberry harvests from your summer and autumn fruiting canes. With advice on planting, pruning, and tips about different varieties to try, here’s everything you need to know about growing raspberries.
Liam – Allotment Book
Bare root raspberries quickly start to grow after planting
Image: Anna Hoychuk/Shutterstock
Plant your raspberry canes with the roots spread out horizontally to the ground, five to ten centimetres below the soil surface, says Liam, creator of the popular blog Allotment Book. “A successful planting will lead to the canes establishing themselves, developing their root systems, and throwing up many new canes in future years,” he says.
Liam also recommends giving your raspberries plenty of water, especially in dry weather, to prevent the shallow roots drying out. See his full article, ‘how to grow raspberries’ for more excellent planting advice.
Jack Shilley
Prune your raspberries using a sharp pair of secateurs
Image: Jack Shilley
Established summer fruiting raspberries need careful pruning to remove the older canes after they finish fruiting in August, says experienced horticulturist Jack Shilley. He demonstrates exactly how to do this in his excellent ‘pruning raspberries’ video, where he cuts back a compact ‘Ruby Beauty’ raspberry grown in a patio container.
Pruning is also a great time for a bit of TLC, he adds, so remove any dead, damaged, or diseased foliage too. Remember not to dispose of diseased canes on the compost heap, Jack advises, to keep the rest of your garden strong and healthy.
Sue Sanderson – T&M blog
Protect your raspberry fruit from birds using a mesh cage
Image: Thompson & Morgan
T&M’s horticultural expert, Sue Sanderson recommends pruning your autumn-fruiting primocanes in February. Simply cut all the canes down to the ground, she says, as new fruit is produced on the fresh growth that appears in spring. Sue’s article, ‘How to grow raspberries’ explains the difference between floricanes and primocanes, and offers excellent advice on planting and caring for your raspberries.
Pete – Real Men Sow
Raspberry ‘Glen Ample’ is the perfect variety for beginners
Image: Raspberry ‘Glen Ample’ from Thompson & Morgan
Some varieties continue fruiting for 20 years, says Pete at Real Men Sow, so it’s important to plant a raspberry you enjoy. For inspiration, see Pete’s shortlist of the best varieties for beginners, small gardens, and huge yields. Not only does Pete recommend the ‘5 best raspberry canes’ for any garden, he provides a full list of pros and cons for each, along with specific growing tips.
John Moore – Pyracantha
Raspberry ‘Sweet Little Sister’ is compact and early cropping, ideal for a container on the balcony
Image: Raspberry ‘Sweet Little Sister’ from Thompson & Morgan
John, the creator of blog Pyracantha, suggests planting up your raspberries in large containers between November and March. He says that bare root raspberries are a cost-effective option, and recommends growing them in pots to save space and to avoid having to wait for the ground to thaw. Read his article, ‘Growing Raspberries in Containers’, for special variety recommendations.
Adam Leone – Carrot Tops Allotment
Plant your bare root raspberries in rows early in the year
Image: Carrot Tops Allotment
“I decided that I wanted a good yield for a longer period of time. This meant that I had to seek out summer fruiting raspberries and autumn fruiting raspberries – with a view to picking [them] from July all the way through to October,” says Adam Leone, creator of Carrot Tops Allotment. If you want fresh, juicy raspberries from early summer through to late autumn, read Adam’s article, ‘Autumn Bliss and Malling Promise Raspberries’, for top tips on the best varieties to choose.
Sue & Martyn – A Gardener’s Weather Blog
Train clump-forming raspberries like ‘Glen Coe’ to support their long canes.
Image: Thompson & Morgan
“The canes are very long, and if they touch the soil, will root and form a new clump,” explain experienced allotmenteers, Sue and Martyn, when describing raspberry variety, ‘Glen Coe’. Creators of the blog ‘A Gardener’s Weather Blog’, they grow six different types including ‘All Gold’ which produces golden yellow fruit. Find out how they prune their mix of summer and autumn raspberries, and pick up some useful care tips from their comprehensive article, ‘Pruning Cane Fruit’.
Karen & Rich – The Garden Smallholder
Choose a colourful mix of varieties for a beautiful harvest of yellow, red, and purple berries
Image: Raspberry ‘Summer Lovers Garden Golden’ from Thompson & Morgan
In September, summer-fruiting raspberries should look tired and dead, which is your prompt to cut down the older growth, says Karen & Rich from The Garden Smallholder. It’s also the perfect time to add a mulch of well rotted manure and compost.
“We had a bit of a glut with our summer raspberries even though I only planted 3 canes,” they say, which sounds good to us! Follow their expert advice in the article ‘Tidying summer fruiting raspberry canes’ to get your own canes producing at full capacity too.
Claire Burgess – Claire’s Allotment
Water your freshly planted raspberry canes well
Image: Claire’s Allotment
Have you ordered bare root raspberry plants? Don’t worry if they look just like a stick until mid-spring, says Claire of Claire’s Allotment. That’s how they’re meant to look! Plant your bare root raspberries like you would a potted plant, but take care not to break any of the roots, she says.
Watch Claire plant a new row of raspberry canes in her video ‘Planting out Raspberries’ to pick up some top tips. Most important? Water your plants at the base of the stem with an open watering can, giving them a good soak to settle the soil around the roots.
Liz Zorab – Byther Farm
Weed your patch in winter to keep your raspberries free of brambles
Image: Byther Farm
“They are, without a doubt, one of the hardest working crops we grow here,” says expert gardener, Liz Zorab, of her autumn-fruiting raspberries. Wait for a dry and sunny day in the winter to tidy through your canes and catch any sneaky brambles that have taken up residence in your plot, says Liz. Watch her video, ‘Raspberry care in the winter’, to see how to care for your dormant canes during the coldest months.
Stew Benson – Petals on the Paving Slabs
Propagate your favourite raspberry varieties for extra plants next year
Image: Raspberry ‘Ruby Beauty’ from Thompson & Morgan
Want to get extra plants from your established raspberries? Pot up suckers from your raspberry patch. Not only does this give you new plants for next year, it also allows your raspberries to concentrate their energy on producing lots of healthy fruits, says Stew of Petals on the Paving Slabs. Watch Stew’s excellent video ‘What to do with raspberry suckers’ to find out how to pot them up for the years to come.
Anthony Potter – The Life’s Good
Tidy and mulch your raspberries after they finish fruiting
Image: Shutterstock
Do you have a heavy clay soil? Over at The Life’s Good, Anthony shows you how he corrects his heavy soil without laborious digging, so that he can grow a row of productive raspberries. Take a look at his before and after shots of pruning too, in his fascinating garden update video ‘Pruning the Raspberries’. We also love his top tips for tying in.
We hope that this has given you plenty of food for thought and answered many of your raspberry-growing questions. For more information and advice, head over to our raspberry hub page.
Since the first seed catalogue was published in 1855, Thompson & Morgan has grown to become one of the UK’s largest Mail Order Seed and Plant companies. Through the publication of our catalogues and the operation of our award-winning website, Thompson & Morgan is able to provide home gardeners with the very best quality products money can buy.
I planted some new Polka autumn fruiting raspberry canes this February and pruned them to the recommended 12″. Many have sprouted from the old wood producing a small crop. One small new cane also produced a small crop, but most new canes have grown over 5 or 6 feet tall and obviously should have had the support that I was told they wouldn’t need. However, none of these very tall canes show any signs of producing fruit this year and it is very nearly mid October. What should I do about pruning these tall canes? In the past I have only grown summer fruiting raspberries.
Hello Phillip. It does seem strange that the new canes haven’t produced any fruit, although the weather this year has led to some peculiar events in gardens with plants not maturing in the way I would expect. Are you certain that they were Polka? (And I presume you purchased them from T & M?).