Adding raspberries to my garden last year was such a great decision and I thought I would share what I have learned. I didn’t know if it would be possible to grow raspberries along a fence in a small space, but I discovered that it works well. They were cheap to plant, easy to grow and I grew them somewhat unconventionally to make them easier to add to a small space.
Why bare root raspberries?
I planted bare-root raspberries to keep costs down and have more options for the varieties. Bare root raspberries are just that…dormant roots shipped to you. Bare roots are much cheaper than buying plants like you would find at the big box stores. I paid $4.50 per root (plant) from Indiana Berry Company. That compares to to $15-$30 that you would pay for a plant. I placed my order in January and they shipped to me in late March.
Another reason to plant bare roots is that the plant is acclimated to your area from the beginning, whereas transplanting a large plant can cause transplant shock and take a while to get going.
Raspberry Primocanes vs. Floricanes
Should you get primocane vs. floricane? Oh boy, I spent a lot of time researching this and it was confusing.
Floricane
- produce fruit on previous year’s growth
- do not produce fruit the first year
- one crop per year earlier in the summer
- prune out the old shoots and only keep the current year’s canes
Primocane
- produce fruit on current year’s growth
- produces fruit the first year
- two crops per year (summer and fall)
- cut all of the canes to the ground when it’s dormant, usually in winter or early spring.
I chose to plant primocanes to make pruning easy as you don’t have to figure out which is a second-year cane, you just cut them all to the ground. Also, they produce two crops per year and fruit the first year. So many advantages.
Varieties
I did some research on my local extension website to determine which types of raspberries grow best in my area. I chose Heritage, Caroline, Joan J and Nova.
Can you grow raspberries along a fence?
Where do you grow raspberries? This was a big sticking point for me. I wanted to grow mine in a narrow spot along a fence in my garden, but I never saw them planted like that. They are usually grown in rows with a support system built for both sides.
Most pictures and set-ups look something like this. Photo from Agfabric:
A typical raspberry installation. Photo via Martha Stewart:
Where I wanted to grow them
I didn’t have room for anything like that. I had a small little area along my back fence and I wanted to try to grow raspberries there. It’s a 4′ walkway where I used to plant a few sunflowers. I decided to give it a try as pretty much everything with gardening starts as an experiment.
Some people will say be careful where you plant them, they’ll start to come up everywhere. That is fine with me and I welcome as many as possible. They are easy to pull up as small shoots if there is somewhere you don’t want them to grow.
Prepping the bed
First I added wire fencing over the wood fencing to function as a trellis. Learn more about how to convert regular privacy fence into a trellis.
Then, I prepped the bed and added some compost. I added rocks as a border.
When to plant raspberries
The rule of thumb is to plant bare root raspberries around 4 weeks before your last frost. For me in zone 7A, that was in April.
How to plant bare root raspberries
Planting bare roots is actually pretty simple.
- Amend with a little compost.
- Dig a shallow trench for the length of the bed. One trench for all of them.
- Set plants 1″ deeper than they were in nursery (crown should be 1″ below soil)
- Put your plant markers in the ground first.
- Place the roots in the trench and fan the roots out in both directions. Line them up all along the trench with the cane (handle) sticking up.
- Cover them up. Make sure plant markers are in the correct places.
- Cut off the old cane (handle) at ground level.
- Water them in!
Watch this video to see how to do it.
Mature raspberry canes along my fence trellis
It worked! Again, it might not be conventional, but it allowed me to have raspberries in my garden in a small bit of wasted space. Unfortunately, I don’t have any wide shots of year one. The first year, they grew, but not very much, maybe to hip height and I got one small harvest in late September/October. Here’s what the canes looked like in year two.
March Raspberry Canes (Year 2)
May Raspberry Canes (Year 2)
August Raspberry Canes (Year 2)
Raspberries are interesting. They aren’t a typical vine and they aren’t exactly a bush. They’re kind of gray area. Multiple shoots come up and they end up looking like an unruly tall bush with some taller shoots than others. They definitely could have taken over my walkway, but I pulled a few canes up and I had to keep attaching the canes to the fence trellis to keep it from becoming unruly.
How to care for the raspberry canes
To grow them along my fence, I had to treat them like my tomatoes and tie them up to the wire fencing every so often. You want to wear gloves when you do this because of the thorns. I use this garden tie tape or this twine.
Conclusions about growing raspberries on a fence
- YES, you can grow them on a fence or trellis in a small space.
- You must trellis them.
- Always buy and plant bare roots. They are so much cheaper and fare better as well.
- Such a great bang for your buck in a small garden. They produce a ton and for me, raspberries are one of the most expensive organic fruits to buy at the grocery store. Every day, when I pick a bowl full, I think well, that would have been at least $12.
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