How to thin out raspberries - how much to remove and how much to leave?
Thinning raspberries
I decided to write about raspberries. In 2015, the children bought a solid house in a small village, but since we are truly city dwellers, we consider our site to be a dacha. As soon as all the documents were drawn up, they immediately set to work. On the old hacienda, they dug up a large number of raspberry bushes and moved them to a new place. Since there really was no shortage of planting material, the seedlings were planted often (even in two rows) - 40 cm from each other.
Thanks to abundant watering, regular weed harvesting and composting, raspberries quickly began to produce good yields. The berries grew large, tasty, and the bushes themselves reached a height of one and a half meters or more. They developed well. When shaping their crowns, I used a double summer pruning. The technology is as follows. In mid-July, young branches began to actively grow, which I immediately shortened. After that, new branches grew, but the lateral ones, which were also pruned.
But in the end, powerful bushes still began to suffer from thickening: due to tightness and poor ventilation, the fruit-bearing branches with berries began to dry out, and fruiting continued only on the lower tiers.
So many bushes and such a small crop? It became clear that the raspberry tree needed to be thinned out. But how? Dig up extra bushes? It's a pity. Try to transplant them? They may not take root in a new place. And I came up with this.
After pruning old fruit-bearing branches every three bushes, the young shoots on three bushes were completely removed, leaving only stumps, and so on until the very end of the rows. Meaning? But look: three bushes bear fruit, and the neighboring three stand with young shoots. They will switch places next season.
As a result, it became light in the raspberry grove, and its yield increased significantly. And this despite the fact that some of the bushes are "on vacation"!
In the photo there are 1-2 plants before pruning; on photo 3-4 - after. Of course, every spring I cut the frozen branches to healthy buds, and remove thin and broken ones altogether. And in each bush I now leave no more than three shoots (or even only two). This is how I found a simple and effective way to get rid of thickening.
We all work with pleasure, no one needs to be rushed, despite the busyness and ailments. We grow everything simply, without problems. For example, our strawberry grows like a carpet. We apply dry pigeon droppings under it in the snow in early spring. For irrigation, we use four "snails" that create impressive fountains. After fruiting, we mow the bushes. We get regular and abundant harvests.
By the way, the "carpet" does not allow plantings to freeze out in winter, and in summer it retains moisture in the soil even in extreme heat. And, to be honest, there are much less worries with the "carpet" strawberries.
We do not know the names of the raspberry varieties. But there are several bushes of the Novosty Kuzmina variety.
See also: Raspberries - moisture, soil, planting method, pruning and variety selection
Raspberry thinning - video
© Author: Valentina NAGORNOVA. Samara
Below other entries on the topic "Dacha and garden - with their own hands"
- Tibetan raspberry (photo) - planting and care
- Cumberland (photos) landing and care, my testimonials
- Growing raspberries in the warm beds of Rozuma - my reviews, planting and care
- Cumberland cultivation, feeding and care (Belgorod region)
- Raspberries on a hill - the secrets of growing, planting and care (Yaroslavl region)
- Raspberry cultivation in the Yaroslavl region - planting and care
- Raspberry varieties Heritage, Brilliant and Hercules - my reviews
- Growing raspberries regular and remontant - differences and pros and cons
- The difference in caring for remontant and ordinary raspberries - my advice
- Raspberry Cumberland without thorns (photo) - planting and care
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How to prevent raspberries from growing beyond the space allotted to them, otherwise they will already fill half the area?
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— First you need to uproot the thickets. And then, to tame the raspberries, dig insulating barriers made of old slate, tin, or roofing felt around the perimeter of the bushes. Offshoots appear from a depth of no more than 25 cm, so it is enough if the lower edge of the barrier is at a depth of 30 cm, and the upper edge protrudes 5 cm. Make the barrier without cracks and holes, otherwise the raspberries will again come out through them into the garden. And remove unnecessary shoots manually or using Round-pa (but use this herbicide only if there are no other cultivated plants near the raspberries).
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In the spring I'm going to uproot the old raspberry. What vegetables can be planted in the vacated space? How to properly fertilize the soil?
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- If you have ordinary raspberries, and not remontant ones, then it would be better to uproot the old raspberries at the end of July and sow winter rapeseed in this place. But since you want to do it in the spring, then sow something from the summer green manure: spring rapeseed, phacelia, oats. These crops will cleanse the soil of harmful microorganisms, enrich it with organic matter, loosen it well after embedding them in the ground.
If you have a desire to grow something from vegetables in this place, then, in my opinion, sweet corn is best suited. This culture suppresses the growth of raspberry shoots. But under it, before planting, it is necessary to carry out liming (a half-liter jar per 1 sq.m), apply organic fertilizers and dig the site deep.
Also, after raspberries, tomatoes, potatoes and pumpkin crops grow well (again, after soil preparation).
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Is it true that peas and curly beans can be grown along the perimeter of a raspberry bush? At the same time, raspberries will be a support for plants, and legumes will loosen and enrich the soil.
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- Ideally, it is better to keep the soil under raspberries under black fallow, periodically loosen gently, trying not to damage the roots, weed weeds, apply liquid fertilizers, and water.
However, legumes near the raspberries are acceptable, since they will indeed enrich the land with nitrogen. But you must understand that caring for raspberries and beans will be much more difficult. Therefore, in my opinion, it is better to refrain from such a neighborhood. But if you want to plant raspberries in a new place, then a year before that it will be useful to plant peas and beans there, harvest, and plant all the green mass in the soil.
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A vegetable garden in place of a raspberry?
Last fall, the old raspberry bushes were uprooted. A large piece of land has been vacated. Half-rotten manure was brought in and dug up with a cutter. What vegetable seeds can be sown in this place?
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- By and large, if you put the site in order, removed all the rhizomes of shrubs and are sure that raspberry shoots will not start growing in the summer, you can plant almost any vegetables. However, it is better to abandon root crops, since raspberries take the nutrients they need from the soil. The ideal option is to grow legumes here in the first year: beans, peas, beans. They are undemanding, give a good harvest and enrich the soil with available nitrogen. Next year, plant cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants. And a year later, you can start planting root crops.
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Raspberries also need winter care. I untie the fruiting shoots from the wire (I have trellis cultivation) and cut them 1-2 cm below the soil. I remove weak and diseased annual shoots. The remaining healthy and strong annual shoots are shortened to a well-developed bud (depending on the variety) - this contributes to better ripening of the shoots and higher winter hardiness. I burn all cut shoots. After the next rain, I feed the raspberries with double superphosphate and potassium salt.
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Do I need to cut off the raspberry leaves for the winter if they have not fallen off themselves?
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- If raspberries leave for the winter with unopened foliage, it means that you are growing plants of more southern varieties that are not adapted to local conditions. Or, during the growing season, they overdid it with fertilizing and watering. You should not hope too much for a successful wintering of such plants (regardless of whether you cut off the foliage or leave it for the winter).