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I love fruit. In fact to date there are only 2 different fruits that I dislike. So even though we have a small lot, you can be sure we are growing raspberry bushes, strawberries, and even a blueberry plant!
Strawberries are my favorite, but they take up a lot of ground space. However, growing raspberry bushes are perfect for a small back yard! They grow up using more vertical space than horizontal and they are relatively easy to maintain.
Benefits of Growing Raspberry Bushes:
- Takes up a small amount of ground space per bush.
- Delicious fruit from late spring to fall.
- Easy to maintain.
- They come back year after year.
- Besides the berries, you can also harvest the leaves for amazing summer teas!
Both of our bushes are red raspberries.
One bush was from my grandpa, he dug up a couple new canes for us to plant. His raspberries bloom in the spring and produce hundreds of berries during late spring and early summer. Once the canes produce fruit, they die off and send up new canes that will produce fruit the following year.
The next spring when you prune, you simply cut off the old dead canes that produced fruit last year, and tie up the new canes that will produce this year. (next years canes will start growing after the fruit is produced.
Our second bush is a cutting we found at Lowe’s.
This bush is interesting. Like the one from my grandpa it too has two different aged canes on it at once, produces fruit from late spring through early summer. However, it each cane actually produces fruit twice.
A new cane will grow up in early spring, then from mid/late summer until the end of September it produces fruit, not huge amounts, but enough to eat on. The following year, it produces fruit at the same time as our other plant. Once it is down producing fruit, that cane will then die.
I wish I knew what kinds of bushes they are, but we do not. We do know however that they do excellent on the west side of our shed in western Ohio. 🙂
There are many different varieties of raspberry bushes; learn which ones will grow best in your area by visiting Monrovia.
The following two photos are of my little patch before we went out and did our spring pruning, you can see the dead canes have no leaves while the new ones are budding out.
The bush on the left came from grandpa, so I actually cut a lot of the old canes out last summer. But once I cut out the old canes, I generally go through and cut the new canes back a bit. Just cutting the long ones down to about 6-7 feet or so, and then I try to guide them between the support wires. This makes it a bit easier to pick the raspberries.
Jason and I eat a lot of fresh raspberries in the spring, but after awhile we get tired of them. Our neighbors also love them so we share a lot too. But we also freeze them. Using the same process as freezing blueberries I freeze our raspberries for yummy recipes like Red Raspberry Pie fruit, and other deliciousness!
And because I just noticed this and it made me do a happy dance…. (look at the blooms!)
Maybe I’ll even grow some strawberries like these this spring!
I love this, do you think these lovely berries would grow in the south, aka texas?
I should think so…. I know they do really well in humid weather and the berries actually taste the best when the weather is hot. Definitely worth a try!
It should be good for Trinidad weather…it always hot ….sometimes rain
Hi Kendra, Very nice post. I would love to grow this berries in my backyard. Got all the info I needed. Thanks for the lovely poat.
Hey Kendra,
We also have a very small lot, but we love strawberries so much that I decided to grow them anyway. I made a circular bed and edged it with landscaping stones. The plants love the heat that the stones retain, and I have never covered them with straw in the winter (read: no thistles!) The stones also provide a nice place to stand on when you’re picking them. I’ve included a link to a picture I pinned when I first started the patch. I have since added a second “ring” and they are doing famously. I just picked a quart off them today, and last year we got so tired of them that I told the neighbors to help themselves. Here’s a link to the pin and picture:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/169166529723408816/
that’s awesome! Our strawberries are next to our house and they also thrive from the reflected heat.
After picking raspberries from my mom’s patch with my little nieces, I’m going to plant a few in my yard. Thank you for your post!
Good luck!
Hi, thanks for the nice photos. I have been reading up on raspberries and blackberries. I think the once-fruiting berries fall into the category of floricane producing bushes. The other one produces on both primocane (first year) and floricane (second year) canes. There are so many berry varieties out there! I’m trying to find comparisons of varieties in the home bramble patch.
Yes, I think you are right there. I tend to get hung up on all the technical terms, so just leave them out altogether 🙂
When is the best time to plant raspberries?
Spring 🙂 You can plant in the summer as well, but spring plantings will do the best.
Beware raspberries – they have taken over my whole perennial garden. They were planted by the former homeowners. They have thorns and are really aggressive. But if you are good at containing them and dealing with them it’s fun to grow berries! Strawberries are also super aggressive and grow in the middle of my lawn!
Haha! Yup, ours grow right up through the cracks in the shed foundation. Our strawberries aren’t quite that aggressive, but they do good as well 🙂 Just enjoyed a large bowl of them!
I love raspberries! Definitely need to look into growing our own this year. I’ve only grown blackberries before but from your post it looks like raspberries would been grown similarly. Thanks for sharing at Merry Monday this week!
My parents used to have a raspberry patch in their back yard. We used to snack on them all summer long and my Dad would make home made raspberry ice cream. Thanks for sharing this post and bringing me back to those lazy summer days : )
I would love it if you would share this post on my weekly link party!
http://www.twentysomethinginthe2010s.com/category/peace-love-link-up/
It goes live every Friday at 6 : )
You made my day. I love raspberries but figured they were too difficult to grow. Now you have inspired me to give it a try. I am located in Indiana so our weather patterns are nearly the same. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for sharing this info. I’ve been a little cautious about getting a raspberry because as a beginner gardener, I thought it was going to hard to grow.
Once established raspberries grow like weeds 🙂
We are just getting some going. Do you have a specific fertilizer plan that you find helps them stay super productive? Organic? thanks
No specific plan and we haven’t fertilized for years now. But this is recommended: fertilize each plant with a total of 0.5 to 1 ounce of nitrogen (N).
I hope that helps 🙂
How do you keep the birds and possums away from them? Animals have taken over my yard with all the fruit. I have scare tape, bird netting, and chicken wire up 😖
Animals are a problem at times. One year the robins were methodically stripping the branches clean so we put up netting. It only kind of worked and made things hard for us to pick. Now we have a dog and he does a great job of keeping the critters away. Problem is… he also likes ripe strawberries and raspberries!
Hi, I bought a yellow raspberry cane and over night something broke it. Will it grow back?
I might be wrong, but I believe it will most definitely grow back.
I’ve been wanting to try raspberries or blueberries for a few years. We’re in SW Ohio, so I think we’d have great weather for them. Thank you for sharing with our Merry Monday party this week!
SW Ohio sounds like my location 🙂 Blueberries are a bit of a struggle for us to grow, but I’m not certain it’s the weather so much as the soil here…
I grew up eating raspberries, my parents had a whole corner of the yard dedicated to raspberries. It was not until I was an adult, doing my own grocery shopping, that I realized how expensive raspberries are!! I planted my second bush this year and look forward to planting more in the future. What are the two types of fruit you hate?
They are definitely expensive to buy but cheap to grow 🙂
And I honestly love most fruits. I don’t like fresh papaya, but enjoy it dried, and star fruit never really grew on me. Other than that, I’ve enjoyed every other fruit I ever tried!