thats why i am growing eden as i don’t have any summer bearers. no swd up here yet! knock on wood. if it shows up, id just kill all my ever bearers and go with summer bearing varieties. prefer the ever bearers as they fruit heavily in a shorter growing window and i find the berries bigger and better tasting. just mow the canes down in late fall. has reduced the incidence of horntail wasps and other parasites because the canes don’t over winter. with all the native wild raspberries up here, removing the canes every year is important.
I usually harvest a summer crop off the ever bearers, but sometimes the floricanes block too much light and the primocanes are weak. If that happens I do just mow them down in the fall. This winter I kept some really big canes. I should get a great summer harvest from them.
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@Drew51, @moose71, @PharmerDrewee and others, how thick and tall do your raspberry primocanes usually get? Do they usually need to be trellised, or do they stand up on their own? I’m asking because my first canes were pretty thin, no more than thumb thickness at the base, and no taller than 3-4ft. Really spindly compared to the blackberry canes.
I’m hoping this year the canes will be a bit more substantial and taller. Maybe once they get established, they’ll bulk up?
thats about right for them at that age. most varieties i have stand on their own. some like anne and caroline are up to 6ft and need tresiling. rasp canes are quite a bit smaller than blackberry canes. thumb thickness is a pretty big cane! they will bulk up in the 3rd year as the roots get bigger.
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I do this too with my everbearers, and get a modest early summer crop. I’m not sure if it affects the fall crop, but production seems adequate later in the year.
Mine are only about 4-5 feet tall, and index finger in thickness. They are upright until the crop forms, and then they start to bend from the weight of the fruit. Blackberry canes are definitely taller, and thicker.
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Thanks for the replies. Yeah, now that I think about it, maybe they aren’t thumb thick. I do know some of the blackberry canes are that big.
Some do, some do not. I have had years where canes are smaller, and need help. I’m not really sure why? Also some have even died on me. Certain cultivars remain fairly strong, most seem to peak then start declining. So a trellis is useful to have.
I’ve read on a canabis growing forum that slica supplements strengthen the stems of the plants. wonder if this would help if added to the plants in late fall to help the primocanes to be stronger and need less trellising.
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I have wanted to try the product. Good idea! Worth trying!
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yep! thats the stuff! also saw a recommendation to harvest horsetail and mulch your plants with it. there is a type of it that grows on the side of the road here. horsetail is very high in silica but not too sure if it would get to the plants this way. may give the liquid a try this spring.
Yeah I use DE the size of perlite in all my potting mixes, and also not sure if that form of silicon will be available to the plant. maybe over time it will? Not sure? I just filled my raspberry bed with old potting soil too. DE will last for decades if not longer. Love the stuff! Today I saw a few fungus gnats in my seedlings so covered the soil with DE. Here is a hybrid pluot. I didn’t keep track of which seed is which?. I germinated seeds from Flavor King, Nadia, Dapple Dandy and Honey Punch. As these are my favorite inter-specific fruits. I plan to next year use Ebony Rose, Flavor Finale, Emerald Drop, Splash, Crimson Royale, or others depending on what I like.
I know some have tried to cross cherry with plum and such. You have to get lucky. I decided not to reinvent the wheel Nadia is half sweet cherry and Fall Fiesta Pluot®, an interspecific plum, includes plum, cherry, peach and nectarine in its parentage. You bet I will be using FF next year.
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where do you buy that coarse DE? never seen it offered around here. does it float like perlite?
No not at all. It absorbs 120% of it’s weight in water. Pores are big enough for roots to access so it gives me an extra day in containers before I need to water. It also aerates like perlite once saturated the water runs down and off particles. When drier it holds air that again roots have access too. The product I use is 100% DE and sold as Optisorb at O’Reilly auto parts stores. Napa sells many products but has one 100% DE. All are called Napa Floor dry, so check that you have the 100% DE product. These products are sold as oil absorbing products.
Last year I had three peach seedlings that were about 20 inches tall and an early fall freeze killed all three. So I redid my Arctic Glo (pollen) x Indian Free (Ovary) crosses. I got two new seedlings if I can keep them alive. Arctic Indian and Indian Glo 
Here’s one of them. Easy to cross since Indian Free has sterile pollen. All fruits are crosses.
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So I use a 3-1-1-1/3 mix in pots 3 parts pine, 1 part Pro Mix, 1 part compost and 1/3 part DE. First time I used it for gnat control. I need to add a touch more so all soil is covered, and they cannot lay eggs in the soil. You can also see a few pieces of Dynamite slow release fertilizer in there too. Currently I have 8 pluot hybrids and 2 peaches. I still have some pluot and peach seed in the fridge in moist paper towel that did not germinate yet.
One pluot has purple leaves not sure how that happened unless it crossed with SpiceZee Nectaplum? It could be a recessive gene expression too. These plants are about a week to two weeks old.
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we have both a o’reillys and a napa so i guess ill be getting some of that. how is it price wise compared to perlite? nice plants by the way.
It’s rather expensive, I think a pay 20 bucks a bag, probably 10 pounds of DE. I forget? I have a bag upstairs. Watch out for the dust, as silica is cancerous. Same with bags of perlite. Great in mineral soil mixes say for cacti too. Pumice works exactly the same as DE but holds only 80% of it’s weight in water. I buy some for my cacti mixes.
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just got a 25lb bag for $17 so its about the same as perlite price wise.
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Yes that is what I use. I would use more, but I have about 125 containers, so I go through about 75 pounds a year. Most are 10 to 20 gallons. A few 30 gallon ones also. I like growing tomatoes in them. Not all years I should only need one bag this year. Most of it is up potting figs, but also other things too, currants, honeyberries, mulberries. Some will be planted out this year.
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going to add some to my raised beds . should help retain water better in there so i don’t have to water as much.
I recycle into my raised beds. They are full of organic matter so every year the levels go down as it is broken down. I had a lot of old potting soil last fall, so filled everything to the brim!
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