raspberries growing pains. help please!

Hello. I inherited some raspberries when we moved to our house about 4 years ago and have been working hard to improve the crop. They were very overgrown and each year I read as much as I can about how to look after them, cutting back old canes, feeding, watering, tying in etc but I still end up with these ridiculous excuse for raspberries! (see pics) Does anyone have any suggestions please? I wonder if the soil is just no good or the plants are too old? I do get some proper size ones and they all taste delicious no matter how small - but it is very frustrating.
Secondly - next years canes are already towering over the fruiting canes (you can see in one pic), making it very hard to pick what I have grown. I usually prune them shorter a couple of times so they aren't so massive over the winter as they grow loads again in the spring. Is this right? Why are they so tall, so early. Help please! Thank you

 

Oh no..such a shame about your raspberries! As far as I have read you seem to be doing what's needed. Are they maybe suffering at the hands of birds? Who are pinching off the good parts of berries? And do they get plenty of sunlight?

 

If they are Autumn harvest raspberries you should cut the plants down to the ground during the early winter..they'll fruit off the new canes next year .
If they are a summer variety then they produce off the previous years growth, so thinning as previously mentioned will be the way to go.

 

Pruning shorter over the winter???
Not a good idea, assuming summer fruiting then, yes thin out some weaker canes, but I dont think I'd shorten them.
Just wondering if they are autumn fruiting and you are cutting the tops off the canes before they fruit in late summer.

Its a mystery.

Raspberries do suffer from a virus which stops them fruiting well, after a few years, I had a similar problem with autumn fruiting ones, they went from producing very large fruit to basically nothing from one year to the next.

 

The instuctions on my 'Autumn bliss' raspberrys (that I've planted last week) state on the label "cut all growth down to ground level in winter"
The 'Tulameen' one's i also planted, bear fruit off the previous years growth so ovs i won't be cutting those down!

 

Yeah, prune autumn plants down to ground in january.
But do we know if they are summer or autumn fruiting?

I was referring to the sentence below, bearing in mind they could be summer fruiting or autumn fruiting, either way it would affect the fruit I would think.

 

Hi. Thanks for all your thoughts. They are summer fruiting ones - they have had fruit in since may and just about done now. Next year's canes have been growing up amongst this year's fruiting ones and are insanely tall - 6.5 to 7 feet but with no leaves below about 4 foot because they have been surrounded by this year's ones. Although I have had some good fruit it has largely been very tiny berries as shown in my photos at the beginning. I get that they may be too crowded so I will keep fewer canes but should they really be 7 foot now?! Won't they be damaged in the winter? Thanks in advance for your advice

 

Here is a photo of the new canes - I have just taken out this year's ones

 

7ft that's good, just tie them in, to the support wire, so the wind doesn't damage them.

 

I've literally just planted the same combo as you! How are yours getting on can I ask? How'd you find the yield for both? Any tips I'd appreciate!

 

They need a high potash feed, if they get masses of nitrogen they grow like mad but don't fruit so we'll. I agree thin them out, then take the very tall canes should be gently bent over and tied down. You will get much more fruit bud break by doing that. As you have inherited them it's hard to know how long they have been there. I am going to move my rows to a new position this year as my old canes have declined over time.