5 clues to growing raspberries

Perhaps you've loved raspberries since you were a kid and always wanted to have them in your garden. Great! Here are a few tips for growing your very own raspberry bush.

• New varieties make raspberries easier to grow than ever, although even old standbys produce beautiful crops for very little effort. You can even extend the harvest season by growing spring-, summer-, and fall-bearing raspberries.
• All raspberries have thorns, so do grow them away from heavy traffic areas.

June-bearing raspberries produce a big crop all at once in early summer.

• These raspberries are like blackberries: they produce fruit on canes that grew the year before.
• If you want plenty of raspberries to freeze or make jam, choose traditional June-bearing varieties for most of your plot.

Everbearing, or primocane raspberries, produce berries on new growth.

• You can cut the canes down to the ground in the late fall or winter and start picking berries from the new canes the following fall.
• Cutting the canes back only halfway will coax an in-between summer crop. Include a few primocane plants to help stretch the raspberry harvest.

• Tie two raspberry bushes around a stake about 1.5 metres tall.
• Gather the branches together gently with strips of soft cloth, being sure to leave space between the canes for air circulation.

To keep long raspberry canes from touching the ground or blowing around in the wind, build a support.

• Drive sturdy posts 60 to 75 centimetres into the ground, then stretch wire between them at knee and chest height.
• There's usually no need to attach the canes to the wires.

• In early summer, when Japanese beetles are out and about, jiggle them off the canes and into a pan of soapy water.
• Aphids can be controlled by a heavy spray from a garden hose or an application of insecticidal soap.
• Raspberries are also vulnerable to viral diseases, which cause the berries to fall apart as you pick them. Remove affected plants and replace them with plants that are certified to be virus-free.

Don't discard old raspberry canes after pruning.

• They make excellent kindling for your fireplace, or you can lay them over newly seeded beds to discourage dogs and cats from digging there.