My grandmother would have gotten better results by sending me out to the garden for zucchini. She should have known better than to send me out for raspberries. I could have brought in as many zucchini as she wanted in a short while. With raspberries though, I was gone too long, and returned with meager spoils and diminished appetite.

            Neither raspberries nor zucchini will be exploitable for a few more months. Raspberries though, can get planted about now. Also, established raspberry canes should be pruned about now to promote abundant production later. Just like most deciduous fruit trees and blackberries, raspberries are not ‘low maintenance’, and require intensive specialized pruning.   

            New bare root plants should be spaced about two to three feet apart and mulched to insulate the soil until they develop enough foliage to shade their own roots. Their canes can then be cut back so that only a single bud is visible above ground. Because raspberries spread, root barriers are sometimes useful to keep them out of neighbors’ gardens.  

            Through summer, new plants should produce three or more new canes. These canes should be able to support themselves, but are less rampant if tied to a trellis or wire. I like to train them onto a fence like grapevines, because there are not many other uses for a fence.

            The more popular everbearing cultivars like Heritage, September, Summit, Golden Summit and Fallgold may develop fruit on the tops of their new canes during their first autumn. During the following winter, the tops of the canes should be cut back as far down as fruit developed. The remaining lower portions of their canes that did not develop fruit in the first year will do so during their second summer, and should get pruned out as they finish producing.

            At about the same time, about five to ten of the best new canes should be selected, and trained if desired. Superfluous canes should be cut to the ground. Like their predecessors, the remaining selected canes should fruit on top during autumn, get pruned in winter, and fruit again during the following summer before getting pruned out. This process should be repeated annually.

            Summer bearing cultivars like Willamette, Canby and Tulameen should not fruit in their first year, and should be pruned to about five feet tall during the following winter. Every subsequent summer, many new canes emerge as the older canes bloom and fruit. Every subsequent winter, about five to ten of these new canes should be selected, tied to support if desired, and pruned to about five feet tall, as all spent canes and superfluous new canes get cut to the ground.

            Black and purple raspberries are shrubbier, so get pruned differently than the more traditional red and yellow raspberries do.  During their first summer, canes should be pruned back to about two feet to promote branching. All except about six or seven of the best of these canes should be removed over winter. The side branches of the selected canes of black raspberries should then get pruned to about half a foot long. Side branches of purple raspberries can be twice as long. After these canes finish fruiting during the following summer, they should be cut to the ground. New canes can then be pruned like during the first summer so that the process can be repeated annually.