Getting things done - Raspberries

[watervole]

The vertigo has eased off a lot recently (fingers crossed) and I'm able to do a lot more.  My wrist (that I hurt five or six weeks ago) is almost recovered and I'm finally starting to get back to that dimly recalled thing called 'reality'.

Massive backlog of jobs on the allotment, but I've managed to go down for a while every day for the last four days.  My work capacity (measured in 'buckets of weeds' seems to be improving a little each day).

I've now weeded all round the beetroot and am starting round the leeks. Those leeks are seriously big, especially considering the skinny little things we dropped into the holes when we transplanted them.  Definitely a testament to all the compost we dug in before transplanting them.

I've also started work on the summer fruiting raspberries.

If you have summer fruiting raspberries (defined as ones that have finished fruiting by now, in the south at any rate), then sometime during the next few months, you need to do the following:

1.  Cut out all the canes that have borne fruit. Cut them right down to ground level (you can leave an inch or so if it makes the job easier, it won't do any harm)

2.  Look at the canes that are left (the new ones that have grown up this year).  Any that are weak and spindly, cut down to the ground.  Leave the strongest canes only. The weak ones don't bear enough fruit to be worth it and they'll only take light/nutrients from the stronger canes that will bear the decent crop.

3.  If any of your canes are more than four foot tall, then you're going to need to support them - otherwise, the poor things will only flop over when they start having the weight of fruit to support.  The simplest way is to knock in a six/seven  foot post at the end of each row, stretch some gardening wire between them at three and four feet (the height of the wires isn't a precise art.  Look at your canes and pick a couple of heights that make sense for your plants.)  Then use string to tie the canes to the wires.   It will project them from blowing over in strong winds and also stop them going floppy and trying to grow sideways...

4.  If you have a compost heap, spread the cut out canes across it in a loose lattice pattern and pile your weeds on top. The canes help maintain air pockets in the pile and also add carbon to balance the nitrogen in the weeds/grass clippings.  If you have a compost 'dalek', then chop up the canes a bit to get them to fit in.  Because canes are so weak, they rot a lot faster than most woody stuff, so I find them really handy in compost making. 


Autumn fruiting raspberries are fruiting nicely now (yum!) and should keep going for some time.  I'll cover what to do with those later on in the year.

Comments

[pennski.livejournal.com]

There are some autumn fruiting raspberries growing wild on one of my routes home from work. You have just reminded me to take that route home this week and see how they're doing.

In tomato news - we've had 22 ounces of tiny yellow tomatoes. There are more to come but most of what's left is turning brown.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Those tomatoes sound gorgeous! Well done!

I've never had any luck with them on the allotment - the blight from the potatoes gets them. (both solanums)

[raspberryfool.livejournal.com]

Yes, my tomatoes have had blighted leaves. You could make some tomato shelters from polythene sheeting and some canes or short poles; as blight spores need moisture to grow, keeping the rain off helps enormously. I'm definitely making those next year.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't there be a risk of the plants getting too hot? perhaps not with tomatoes.

[raspberryfool.livejournal.com]

The main problem is remembering to water regularly, not just during dry periods. Because the shelters are open, the plants don't get particularly hot, but you can create a microclimate by sheltering from the wind, or you *could* wrap polythene all the way around. I'm watering every three days now it's cooler.

This picture shows my arrangement. Thanks for posting btw, I'm glad you're feeling better and getting stuff done. :-)

[watervole.livejournal.com]

And that really prevents blight? How many years have you been doing it that way? I've never seen that technique used before.

It's nice too see what your garden looks like!

[raspberryfool.livejournal.com]

Thanks, this is the first year I've tried it. I won't say it prevents blight totally, but it keeps the rain off the plants and should delay it, at least until most of the fruit ripens. Last years' experience inspired me to regard rain as fatal to tomato plants. It's working well so far, some leaves and stems have been affected but i've only lost a couple of fruits that were getting dew dripping on them. I'll get a new picture up later.

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're feeling better, my friend.

My great-grandfather (who was a farmer) used to say that raspberries have minds of their own. He never explained his reasoning behind that but he regarded it as some kind of mystic truth. lol

[sophiedb.livejournal.com]

hello! The raspberry canes you gave us have done really well this year - though I can't think how many bowls'-worth we might be eating, since few have made it out of the garden (except in our bellies).. oops? Still going strong too, and a few new canes have popped up too. I think I might have to shift them to somewhere more spacious though - I didn't really think about how big they'd get when I planted them *head!desk*

[watervole.livejournal.com]

The Autumn fruiting canes have a serious tendency to spread if they like your soil.

Really pleased to hear they produced much fruit that failed to escape from the garden!

[raspberryfool.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've cut down my old canes; they also make good bonfire tinder. Normally I tie the new canes together for support, but figured the bees might not be so efficient with tightly-packed flowers. My new summer-fruiting canes are already in flower, the bees have been busily pollinating them and they'll ripen during October, die back once the frosts set in and flower again in spring. The late raspberries spoil once they freeze, and I leave them to the birds after about Guy Fawkes' Night.

Also the strawberry plants are flowering again; that'll be the warm weather, I suppose.

[decemberleaf.livejournal.com]

We had a couple of four-layers-of-clothes mornings last week (and then beautiful warm fall afternoons), enough to make me think of planning ahead. I've never planted a winter cover crop before. Do you have any suggestions?

P.S. I've just book-marked http://watervole.livejournal.com/tag/allotment (don't know why I didn't do this a long time ago).

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Have you considered Japanese onions? Not a cover crop per se, but they can be planted about now.

[decemberleaf.livejournal.com]

Japanese onions: would never have thought of them. I'm looking for something to plant about mid-October or early November (hoping for no hard frost until then) that will--I hate to admit it--LOOK nice all winter (as well as be a useful and nutritious cover crop), since I've taken the leap of planting a vegetable garden right in front of my house--which is not the norm here, to put it lightly. (Neighbors have used sunny spaces well hidden behind their houses to grow some vegetables [one man has a really interesting and good vegetable garden, but you'd never know it unless you knew him and his family]; but the only significant sunlight I get is in front, practically in the middle of the road. Hmmm... don't want to try to do too much too fast about introducing Michael Pollan's front-lawn-quibble here... Next year I'll do more. Eventually I'm planning on having hardly any grass at all. For the moment what I need is simply an attractive cover crop.) P.S. Deer are a major problem in this area (as are rabbits), so my winter cover crop needs to be deer-resistant as well as beautiful-to-look-at (almost forgot to mention that).

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Well, you could always plant the onions in a pattern!

Nothing says they have to be in straight lines - how about a spiral?

There's not much else. Spring greens and cabbages could be planted out, but that's about it.

[decemberleaf.livejournal.com]

I like that spiral idea!

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

I was thinking that come summer, you could do what I do with sweetcorn, which looks much nicer than rows and gives great results. Remind me, come spring, to tell you the trick.