Autumn Raspberries -

Hi,

Our 3 year old Autumn Rasps have grow up tall and leafy but probably due to lack of water there is little sign of any flowers let alone fruit.

Even if watered well now, are they likely to give any worthwhile fruit this year ?

If not, should we cut them down to the base now or leave them until later, not sure if cutting them how would deprive the roots of anything ?

 

Not sure but if they have grown alright it seems strange no flowers or fruit.

I had some years ago and they just stopped cropping, I put it down to virus and dug them out eventually.

 

I grow Joan J and was picking the first in mid-July.
They're not as good as in previous years.
Many of the fruits are about 1/3 the size they usually are.
We've had no useful rain here for months and I've only watered them 2 or 3 times.
I'll give them a good soak tomorrow and see if that helps - it's worth giving yours a good soak too and see if that encourages flowering.
Mine usually go on until sometime in October

If they don't flower, then I'd cut the canes back whenever you usually do it.
If you cut them down now, they may start sending up new canes straight away which would be a waste of energy.

 

We had a good crop from the nearby Summer Rasps and even the Blackberry has loads of ripe fruit but not the Autumn Rasps, Polka, though they are 6-7ft high.

Good Point


Just a follow up quesion, we have the 3 year old Merton Thornless Blackberry and its doing too well, putting out many new shoots, some growing several yards long, which we have to cut back.

Finding it bit too big for our small garden vs the actual crop, but have yet to find a good tasting dessert one that does keep compact ?

Mertons profile suggests its a small plant compared to some Blackberries but think they under estimate them, its not as if our growing conditions are that good either.

 

My All Gold already finished this year. Had good berries. No rot and mold.
I watered plants weekly when we didn't have rain.

 

My new Paris raspberries I put in pots in winter are doing ok, the ones in small pots are tall and green but the ones in a very big pot now have inflorescences of maybe 15 flowers each developing. Yay!
Theyve taken a fair bit of water though and are in an enamaled pot which really helps keep moisture in.

Personally if the plant is struggling I wouldnt prune at all but only because the plant wants the energy.

 

Mine are also Polka, about 3-4 years old I think. Of the six original plants, only the first two nearest the front have fruited but the runners went amok nearby in my asparagus bed and have fruited very well this year. I'm picking a small bowl of raspberries nearly every day and have only watered them twice in last 3 months.

I wonder whether you should try a fertiliser liquid feed to see if that and the recent rain if you've been lucky enough to get some will spur them into flowering? Good luck.

 

Wow, I heard good things about polka. Lovely harvest!

 

Good Point

Just a follow up quesion, we have the 3 year old Merton Thornless Blackberry and its doing too well, putting out many new shoots, some growing several yards long, which we have to cut back.

Finding it bit too big for our small garden vs the actual crop, but have yet to find a good tasting dessert one that does keep compact ?

Mertons profile suggests its a small plant compared to some Blackberries but think they under estimate them, its not as if our growing conditions are that good either.[/QUOTE]

I've found one!
Waldo a thornless variety - the flavour is outstanding and big fat juicy berries with no core.
Mine is about 8 yrs old now and is easily managed.
It puts out about 8 new canes each year that get to about 8-10ft so covers 2 fence panels and no more.
I usually get about 10Kg to freeze from it.

 

My yellow ones have been producing 2 or 3 ripe fruit a day for the last couple of weeks. There are lots of flowers though which the little solitary bees seem very keen on.

I also have Polka, planted 2-3 years ago and currently in about the same state as the yellow.

Fruits have been generally small and I suspect the dry conditions too. There's not been enough to fill punnets yet, I'm just grazing them.

I have a similar problem with the thornless blackberry. I also find the fruits hard to pick - they stay firmly attached until they're nearly rotten and covered in fruit flies. And the flavour is weird. Will probably be fine stewed with apples.

 

Ours have recently started to slow down fruiting, which is early as they are autumn fruiting. I have been harvesting about 2kg every couple of days for a month and maybe 1-1.5kg for a couple of weeks before then. They are still flowering and producing smaller fruit but I think they have used up the moisture in the soil. We haven't watered much but did put on a thick mulch of wood chips in the spring which I think helped massively. They have never been fertilised and I'm not sure the variety. All our fruit has been great this year and most things have been super early. I didn't cut down the gold raspberries as I knew I'd be away when they normally cropped and they summer fruited and are now fruiting again on the stems produced this year (canes to about 7ft).
If they don't fruit then I would heavily mulch and water them.

 

Wow so many raspberries Try flogging them to your village, market price can be 15£ a kg!

Or perhaps a rare raspberry wine?
There is Bachus raspberry belgian beer and that is delicious, but an aquired taste. My first sip made me think it was off, very sour for a beer. Now I ask for it for christmas every year

We have collected about 3kg of wild blackberries of varying quality and I plan to turn half our current batch of beer into blackberry lager.

 

Where I often walk there are what I consider wild raspberries, never seen a fruit on them.

 

We freeze alot and use them throughout the year, alot go to neighbours and I do make some jam. I don't drink alcohol as I've never like the taste but I have tried just about every other recipe using raspberries by now.

 

We have plenty of those in the local woods as well. I've seen fruit, very sparsely fruited though, on them twice in memory. Once about 5 years ago and a few this year. I don't think they even flower most of the time.