Raspberry Crop - 2020

This will be the fourth season for my large raspberry patch (4 2x34 ft raised beds).  See the previous posts about the 2017, 2018, and 2019 crops.  I have 4 raspberry varieties (Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova) which fruit at different times of the year and have unique flavor profiles.

Much of last year was spent on a project to make the raspberries more easy to manage.  They were planted on the lawn and I found that the grass between the beds became very difficult to mow later in the year as the raspberries became increasingly disorderly.  To attempt to correct this I have dug all the dirt out down 6 inches between the beds and put in a lawn border of concrete and paving stones.  My 2019 post details this effort.  I hope to complete this project over the next month by filling the spaces between the beds with rock.  I'll also be putting in the plumbing for sprinklers which will come in handy during the summer periods where there is little rain.  Will be tracking both of these in this post.

Given how busy I was with the excavation and concrete pouring over the last month I haven't had a chance to cut out old grown and truss up all the plants.  Will plan to make time for that before growth really starts to kick in.

I ended up with 104 lbs of fruit last year.  I haven't managed to use all of it yet.  I'm expecting a similarly sized crop this year.  I'll track day by day like last year.

I'll provide picture updates every couple weeks to show progress.  We've had a pretty mild winder and an early start of spring.  The plants started to show growth a bit earlier than expected during the week of 3/16.

10/31/20 - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

9/18/20 - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

8/9/20 - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

7/5/20 - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

6/21/20 - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

6/6/20 - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

5/23/20 - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

5/9/20 - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

4/26/20 - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

4/11/20 - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

3/28/20 - R to L: Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova

Raspberry Picking Tracker:

• 6/8 - 4 oz
• 6/9 - 8 oz
• 6/10 - 13 oz
• 6/11 - 1 lb 5 oz
• 6/12 - 1 lb 9 oz
• 6/13 - 1 lb 9 oz
• 6/14 - 3 lb 5 oz
• 6/15 - 2 lb 4 oz
• 6/16 - 2 lb 9 oz
• 6/17 - 2 lb 9 oz
• 6/18 - 4 lb 1 oz
• 6/19 - 2 lb
• 6/20 - 4 lb 2 oz
• 6/21 - 4 lb 5 oz
• 6/22 - 4 lb 9 oz
• 6/23 - 4 lb 7 oz
• 6/24 - 4 lb 13 oz
• 6/25 - 3 lb 10 oz
• 6/26 - 5 lb 2 oz
• 6/27 - 3 lb 15 oz
• 6/28 - 3 lb
• 6/29 - 2 lb 13 oz
• 6/30 - 2 lb 6 oz
• 7/1 - 3 lb 15 oz
• 7/2 - 2 lb 15 oz
• 7/3 - 4 lb 14 oz
• 7/4 - 4 lb
• 7/5 - 2 lb 7 oz
• 7/6 - 3 lb 4 oz
• 7/7 - 2 lb 11 oz
• 7/8 - 2 lb 4 oz
• 7/9 - 3 lb 6 oz
• 7/10 - 1 lb 8 oz
• 7/11 - 1 lb 10 oz
• 7/12 - Did not pick
• 7/13 - 15 oz

• Total - 99 lb 11 oz

Raspberry Growing Log:

• 3/28/20 - Quite a bit of growth started on both last year's canes as well as from the ground. Started to see it a couple weeks ago but it's been accelerating with the warmer weather and sunlight we've been getting.  Very excited that all beds seem happy as I was worried I might have caused too much damage by digging out the roots that had escaped the bounds of the beds.  Raspberries are very hardy it turns out.

New Growth + Weeds

• 4/5/20 - Finished installing water faucets next to each bed.  Filled in the trenches I dug after checking the plumbing for leaks.

Valve at the end of the line to allow for draining the system

• 4/11/20 - Graded the dirt around the bed and spread gravel which I packed down.  This is my first layer to prevent weeds from growing.

• 4/26/20 - I had 5 yards of sand delivered this week and I've been putting a layer onto the gravel.  The primary purpose of the sand is to protect the landscape fabric that comes next from sharp pointy rocks that could tear it.  I also hope that the sand goes between the gravel and locks it into place a bit better which would prevent dirt from flowing through and prevent weeds from growing through.

• 5/9/20 - Put down almost 1200 sqft of landscape fabric in the last couple weeks.  It is a heavy duty weaved fabric which is supposed to let water and air through.  I've stapled and glued this onto the planter beds and glued and nailed it into the concrete.  Will cover this with sand next.  The plants are putting out a lot of flower buds at this point which is fun to watch.  Need to do quite a bit of work on the beds themselves still (weeding, putting down compost, and tying up the plants).

Stapled and Glued to the bottom of the raised bed - will deal with the slack as I fill up the hole

Nail gun

• 5/15/20 - Put the leftover sand on the top of the landscape fabric to protect it from puncture by the gravel which will come next.  Have about a 1 inch layer  Received the delivery for 14 cubic yards of this rock shortly after completing

• 5/16/20 - Initial layer of rock and brick border around valve access installed.  This brick will keep gravel out of the valve box.  I'll be putting a piece of flag stone on top of this to provide easy access for draining the water line at the end of the year.

• 5/23/20 - Slow but steady progress this week.  I moved a lot of gravel into the bed area and stapled up the remaining flaps of landscape fabric.  All the plants are forming flowers and the fruit are starting to come along on the Prelude and Joan J.  It's been very dry the last week so I actually had to water.  I used a garden hose to do it this time - the new pluming made the job so much easier.  Really happy I did this!  I've been so busy with the landscaping I haven't gotten around to adding compost to all the bed.  Fed them all with some blood meal to help with next years growth (although no real sign of trouble in that department as there is a lot of healthy looking new growth).

• 5/29/20 - Ordered 1.8 tons of Flag Stone to build steeping stones through the gravel bed.  Started laying it out.  Cut them with an angle grinder and diamond blade

• 6/6/20 - Getting close to wrapping up the flag stone layout and gravel which will mark the end of this landscaping project.  Starting to get ripe fruit on the Prelude and Joan J raspberry plants.  Have eaten my first few 2020 raspberries

• 6/7/20 - Finished with the flagstone and gravel
• 6/27/20 - I finished putting compost on all my beds finally.  The ones I weeded first now have a bunch more weeds unfortunately - a lot of work.  Getting a lot of fruit - taking an hr+ to pick every evening.  Seems like Prelude and Joan J are just about done.  Nova has produced a lot so far and has a lot left to ripen.  TulaMagic are doing really good this year - half way done for those I would say
• 7/5/20 - Status items of note:
• Prelude are done with the Summer crop - I've cut out almost all last year's canes.  Have fruit starting to form at the tips of this year's growth already
• Joan J are mostly done - have started to cut out spent canes here
• TulaMagic are still productive.  I've had a lot more fruit from these plants this year than last.  I suspect that my pruning approach this year made a difference.  Last year I had trimmed the canes down to about 4 feet in the late fall - many of the old canes didn't come back the next season.  This year, I waited to prune until spring and, at that point, only cut off the very tip which had fruited and weren't putting out leaves.
• Nova are still very productive.
• Spotted Lanternfly have arrived in my neighborhood this year.  I started finding them on the raspberries in the last couple days.  They are small still with black and white spots.  I've been able to kill them fairly consistently using spray bottle with soapy water (no damage to the plants I can see from this so far.  This spray is also working nicely with the japanese beetles.
• 9/18/20 - Prelude and Joan J have been ripening fall crop fruit for weeks.  Between my wife and I we've been eating any ripe fruit that appears.  The TulaMagic and Nova are getting fairly close to having ripe fruit but nights are already starting to get down into the 40s so we may hit a freeze before it all fully ripens
• 10/31/20 - There has been a pretty good fall crop but we've ended up just picking and eating.  Still have a bit of fruit left but it's starting to get close to freezing so I expect that will be coming to an end soon.  We've been having deer hit the prelude raspberries fairly hard - biting off the tips of the canes.  It will be interesting to see if this hinders them next year

• 4/19/21 - Read about the 2021 crop here.
• 5/1/22 - Read about the 2022 crop here