I have a 15x2 foot patch of raspberry plants. It’s a mix of heritage, Caroline, and Anne
Everyday when I go out to the garden I get maybe 10 raspberries. Are raspberries really so low yielding like this or is there something going on with my setup? The plants are a few years old and I don’t feel like there’s ever been a day where I’ve gotten more than a handful of berries during a harvest. Compare this to my redcurrant where I was able to harvest a ton of fruit at once.
I’m tempted to rip them out and replace them with blackberries or some other high-yield berries. Can people tell me their experiences with raspberries and yields?
Have you been fertilizing regularly? Personally, I’ve noticed that when i fertilize regularly, they seem happiest. I stopped fertilizing as much this season because of life and i haven’t gotten as much as the last few years where i was regularly giving them a little bit each week. Mine are in pots even and every day last year, i got a cup full from my Anne. Since I’ve had to stop doing so much for them this year, they slowed down. Only picked up again after i started again. But again, mine are all in pot still.
I tried raspberries here long ago. Too heat challenged and bugs eating the leaves. Blackberries are so much easier with decent yields without much extra care.
I will throw out some more possibilities to ponder-
You described your 15x2 as a patch… does this mean that you mow to the ground and whatever happens happens?
If so…then the likelihood is that you need to thin in order to get higher yield per row/foot.
Raspberries are shallow rooting so not sure how you give them nutrients… or what nutrients you give them.
Not sure if you do any tipping or anything of that nature.
Do you have more than 5 canes/ft?
Caroline starts producing in mid August and Heritage starts producing soon… so yields will be low until they come into peak production. (ymmv depending on climate and location).
Over and underwatering will of course decrease yields…so if you are doing no watering during a drought. water stress can cause low yields as well.
No, raspberries are not low yielding. This is a patch roughly 4’ x 16’. There’s Polana in the front, Caroline at the back. I cut these to the ground each winter, grow them as primocane only.
The picture is a month old. As you can see, there’s a bunch of ripe fruit with much more to come. The canes are still bearing now a month later, but it’s close to the end. Meanwhile, over the past month I’ve picked hundreds of berries (a few pounds) every few days. I can pick non-stop for 1/2 hour to an hour.
