Raspberries: Premium Fruit That's Easy to Grow

Delicate raspberries are highly perishable and expensive to buy, but easy to grow at home, yielding abundant, mouthwatering fruit in midsummer.

About This Plant

Select bare-root or soil-rooted plants. Buy only certified virus-free stock. Black raspberries are especially disease-vulnerable—plant resistant varieties when possible. Summer-bearers yield some berries in year two, then full crops each summer. Everbearers may produce a fall crop in year one.

Site Selection

Choose a site in full sun; avoid low-lying areas where frosty air accumulates. Eliminate perennial weeds, preferably with a cover crop planted 1 year ahead. Destroy neighboring wild raspberries/blackberries to prevent disease spread.

Planting Instructions

Plant in late winter or early spring. Set plants 1–2 inches deeper than previously grown. Space 3 feet apart in rows 6–7 feet apart. Allow red/yellow raspberries to fill a hedgerow ≤2 feet wide (some purples too); blackcaps and most purples remain separate plants. Cut black raspberry canes to ground level; leave an 8-inch handle on others. Water well.

Care

Keep aisles between rows tilled bare or planted with mowed grass. Cultivate weeds early first summer, then mulch thickly. Maintain 4–8 inch mulch year-round once established. Dig/till suckers spreading beyond rows. Erect a T-trellis if canes don't stand alone. Pruning differs by raspberry type—contact your Cooperative Extension office for pruning guidance and pest management (cane borers, crown borer, anthracnose).

Harvesting

Berries ripen over 2–3 weeks in early summer; everbearers yield again for several weeks in early fall. When they slide easily off the small white core, they're ripe. Pick into small containers to avoid crushing bottom berries.