Raspberry Crop - 2018

I am really excited to report that Spring has arrived in SE PA! My second year Raspberry plants have survived the winter and are coming back strong. You can read about my first year with these plants in this blog post.

I have 4 2x30 foot beds each with a different variety of raspberry (Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova).

Based on last year, I expect to get fruit from old growth on all the plants in June and July. The new growth will then produce fruit for me in September/October time frame.

I ended up with 22 lbs of fruit last year starting with only some bareroot stock. I'm starting this year with a lot more plants - I'd expect that I should have quite a bit more this year. I'm making a Raspberry Flanders Red and a Raspberry Sour Blonde with last years fruit. I intend to make new versions with the fruit this year. If all goes well I may have enough for a third beer as well.

10/18/18 Update - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

9/3/18 Update - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

8/11/18 Update - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

7/7/18 Update - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

6/2/18 Update - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

5/5/18 Update - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

4/14/18 - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

What a difference a year makes! Last year I was busting my butt outside for 40+ hrs putting these things in. This year I sat on my butt watching the Masters and drinking beer. It was an expensive and time consuming effort to put in these raspberries but now that I can see that the plants survived the winter I can confidently say that it was worth all that effort.

Will provide status updates every month or so.

Raspberry Growing Log:

• 3/31/18 - First nice weekend of the year - I believe spring is finally rearing its head.  The raspberries are starting to put out new growth - both from the previous years stems and the roots!
• I did some weed pulling, tying, and trimming off of last year's spent fruiting stems
• I cut back any of the spindly branches that were too small to be tied up - many of these had growth already - I should have taken care of this earlier

R to L:  Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

New Growth from Preludes Plants

• 4/1/18 - Added 1 tbs of Blood Meal and 1 tbs of Bone Meal distributed for ever two feet of bed.  Kept it away from the new growth as much as possible.  Added an inch or so of sifted compost to the tops of all the beds.
• 4/14/18 - We've had the first couple days in the 70s this week.  It seems like spring is really here.  The plants are doing quite well - putting out a lot of leaves and a lot of new growth.  There are many runners that have escaped out into the lawn - I'm considering transplanting some of these.

R to L:  Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

Prelude Raspberry

Joan J Raspberry

TulaMagic Raspberry

Nova Raspberry

• 5/5/18 - The plants have put out a lot of growth in the last couple weeks.  Flower buds are starting to form on Joan J and Prelude.

Prelude Raspberry

Joan J Raspberry

TulaMagic Raspberry

Nova Raspberry

• 6/2/18 - The plants have been very active in the last month.  The old growth is forming a lot of fruit and new canes grew tall very quickly to get some sunlight.  The technique of tying the old growth to the wires has worked very well as it has left the middle for the new growth to expand up into.  Some of the new growth has gotten up to high wire height already.  No fruit has ripened yet.  Prelude, Joan J and Nova are all about even and should be ripening here in the next couple weeks.  TulaMagic stated a bit later and may start ripening a couple weeks later.  It is looking like there will be a lot of fruit this year.

Prelude Raspberry

Prelude Fruit

Joan J Raspberry

Joan J Fruit

TulaMagic Raspberry

TulaMagic Fruit Forming and New Growth

Nova Raspberry

Nova Fruit

• 6/8/18 - Fruit has started to ripen enough to start picking yesterday.  Got about a pint of berries the last couple days which I am freezing.  These are mostly from Prelude and Joan J at this point - a couple from TulaMagic and none from Nova so far.
• 6/15/18 - I got a lot of fruit out of the Joan J and Prelude yesterday (more than a quart of each one).  I've got about 5 lbs of fruit so far.  I've been trying to refine my selection technique a bit.  I'd been picking based on the color primarily but I've found that I end up picking some that aren't quite ripe this way.  I'm switching to more of a selection by feel.  I'll pick them if they feel soft and come off with very little effort.  The soft fruit tend to be sweeter and richer in flavor while the slightly under ripe ones are quite a bit tarter.

Prelude

Joan J

• 6/18/18 - I've been watering the plants the last few days as we haven't had much rain for the last week.  Also fed them a liberal amount of blood meal (small hand full thrown in ever few feet) - reference this interesting article for some advice on caring for raspberries to maximize the quality of the fruit - I'm giving this a try.  The Joan J are running low on new fruit and the Prelude are probably more than half way ripened.  Nova have a ton of fruit that is just about ripe and TulaMagic are getting started as well.  I'm spending half an hr every afternoon picking a quart or two of fruit - very satisfying.
• 6/21/18 - Been getting a lot of fruit here over the last few days.  Joan J is petering out on the old growth but the new growth is putting out buds already.  The Prelude are about done.  Nova and TulaMagic are taking off.  Weighed my take so far - 17 lbs of fruit
• 7/7/18 
• Fruit Status:
• Prelude - pretty much done with their summer crop (maybe a dozen fruit left).  These were dark and quite sweet at their peak

• Joan J - a bit left in the original summer crop but are starting to put out a bunch of additional fruit on the new growth.  These were also able to get dark and nicely sweet

• TulaMagic - these put out a lot of ripe fruit in the last couple weeks and still have quite a bit left but are likely past their peak.  These fruit get very large compared with the others.  We've found that they tend to get overripe and too squishy if left on the plant too long.  Been picking them before they get overripe.  These have a rich flavor with a mild sweetness and not a lot of tartness

• Nova - put out a lot of fruit here in the last couple weeks - there is a lot left over as well.  These fruit are smaller and quite a bit tarter than the others.  We've had a dry couple weeks where I've had to water them myself - it may be that they aren't getting enough water

Nova with one of the Birds that decided it likes the taste of raspberries

• Overall Status:
• I was amazed to find that we have collected 63 lbs of fruit (my back is still sour from picking them all up together).  My wife and I spend a good hr a day picking fruit since my last weigh in (17 lbs) so I knew there was a lot more fruit but we both were assuming we'd have more like 40 lbs.

What we picked yesterday

63 lbs of Raspberry

• 8/11/18 - The summer fruit ended several weeks ago on all except the Joan J which have continued to put out fruit on new growth.  The fall fruit is starting to form on the prelude raspberries (quite a lot actually).  I've been working to clean up the beds over the last couple weeks - cutting out last year's canes, tying up this year's canes, and pulling out weeds.  The plants are going very strong still.

Prelude

Joan J

TulaMagic

Nova

• 9/3/18 - All the raspberries are starting to put out quite a bit of fruit again for the fall crop.  Prelude has been ripening in the last week and I've gotten at several pounds from it already.  TulaMagic has a lot of fruit forming and it's just getting started ripening.  Nova also have quite a bit but none has gotten quite ripe yet.  The plants are very unruly and getting down the aisles is quite difficult at this point.  I'm not sure what I could have done to prevent this other than spacing out the rows a bit more.  No matter - worth it to get the fruit.

Fruit picked today

Prelude

Joan J

Joan J Fruit + Butterfly

TulaMagic

Nova

• 10/18/18 - It has started to get pretty close to freezing and the plants are looking raged.  I think I'm done picking for the year.  I've started to tie up the plant a bit more and will be trimming them down to the upper wire soon.  I have 25 1 gal bags of fruit which weigh about 3.7 lbs each.  This is about 90 lbs of fruit.

• 1/6/19 - Over the last 4 weeks I've been slowly working to cleanup the beds and prepare them for next season.  I first tied up all the growth that I planned to keep, I then cut out all the weak canes that couldn't reach either wire (I'd already cut out all the dead growth that fruited last season), I then added compost up to the top of the beds (was about 2-3 inches across the length of the beds.  The decision on how much growth to leave behind is an important one.  The more you leave behind the more fruit you should get next season but if you leave too much you can make it more difficult for new growth to get established which will limit the fall crop and leave you with less the next year.  I didn't have a lot of old canes last year and I still ended up with 90 lbs of fruit.  I've left a lot more this year.  Will be interesting to see how my decisions on how many canes to leave impacts the growth in our upcoming season.

• Prelude:

• I have 171 canes in this 34 foot bed (~5 per foot)
• Joan J:  

• For my Fall Baring Joan J I've been leaving the old growth to get a summer crop which has worked out nicely.  I had 5 or 6 plants pulled out in the first season (by person or animal - I never found out which) and my attempts to replant these only resulted in 4 or 5 weak new canes coming up.  I have ordered 5 more bare root plants to re-populate this half of the bed for next year.  I have cut these canes to the ground.  I have 79 canes in the first 20 foot of bed (~4 per foot)
• TulaMagic:

• This plant grew very thick and tall canes.  Some were 10 feet or more.  It was painful to cut them to the wire which is 5 feet but I think this is for the best as the path between the plants was almost completely blocked.  I'll need to consider how to deal with this a little better next year.  The plant didn't produce quite as many canes as the others - I got 140 plants in this 34 foot bed (~4 per foot)
• Nova:

• I have 180 canes in this 34 foot bed (~5 per foot)
• 4/28/19 - Read about the 2019 crop here
• 4/26/20 - Read about the 2020 crop here.
• 4/19/21 - Read about the 2021 crop here.
• 5/1/22 - Read about the 2022 crop here

Lessons Learned:

1. Mowing the lawn around the raspberries has been a challenge again this year.  I have quite a bit of growth which is hanging down into the lawn.  I've taken to just mowing down the middle of each row and allowing the grass to grow tall around the beds. This could be making it easier for bugs to access the fruit.  Last year when pruning I left a lot of plants that had only reached the lower wire as I wanted to maximize my fruit collection.  These are the plants that are currently making mowing difficult.  Given how much fruit I'm getting this year I think I can be more selective about what canes I decide to allow to proceed into the next season.
2. I'm really happy about the production of the Joan J on old growth.  It will be interesting to see how the fall crop plays out on these.  Based on the summer fruit production I'm thinking I'll take the same management approach this year (shoot for two crops next year by leaving the old growth to over winter).
3. There was a lot of rain in May and early June which made the plants very happy.  It dried out here in lat June and July so far and we have been having to water with a hose.  I really dislike watering the plants as I have to stoop down the just wet the soil.  I also feel like I may not be giving them a deep enough watering - I've read less frequent but longer duration watering is preferable for raspberries.  With this in mind I intend to install a drip system at the end of the season for use next year.  I'm thinking a hanging drip system (about a foot up) similar to what are used for grape vines could be nice.