Raspberry Crop - 2022

It has now been 5 years since I planted my Raspberry beds - we're now headed into the sixth growing season (read about the 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 crops).  The plants have emerged from another winter and are producing a lot of growth here in April (like normal).  Some initial status/thoughts on my 4 varieties:

• Prelude:
• These plants didn't put out a whole lot of new growth last year which left several bare patches in the beds.  I decided to buy 10 more bare root plants to fill in the gaps this year.  They were planted in the first week of April
• Joan J:
• Starting the season pretty strong already - these are a summer variety that I've been treating like a spring variety (leaving the old growth to fruit in the spring).  They do quite well treated this way.
• TulaMagic:
• These produce some very long canes full of pretty nasty thorns.  I neglected these last year and had quite a bit of deadwood to cut out this spring.  The new growth starts pretty slowly on the lower parts of the cane.  They may be getting a bit weaker year to year.  Will be interesting to see how full the bed is with viable 1 year canes this year - if it is a weak growing season I'm contemplating replacing these with some new variety.  The fruit from these plants taste good (big and sweet berries) but the volume isn't that strong - not strong enough to justify both the maintenance difficulty and need to be replaced.
• Nova:
• These guys are very strong growers here in spring.  Get a lot of early growth from these on practically all the 1 year canes and there is strong coverage through the whole bed.  These produce tall canes but they are pretty much naturally hanging over the top wire of the beds without any need for tying.  They are very easy to grow and produce a lot of fruit - it tends to be a fairly tart fruit when ripe (less sweet than the other three) 

I've been consistently getting more fruit than I can use from these raspberries which is a pretty good problem to have.  I'm out of freezer space so I'll need to use a good amount of fruit coming up here in May to make room for another 90-100 lbs.  I need to find something new to do with these rather than save them for beer (thinking I'll try some more ice cream/sorbet using fresh berries) - may have to give some away this year

Anyway, hoping to keep these plants growing strong this year.  I've been pretty lazy so have quite a bit of weeding and other plant care to do here this spring.  These plants are a fair amount of work even once a good setup is in place but I think it's well worth it.

I'll be posting monthly status through the year as well as daily fruit harvest weights for the sake of trending:

7/11/22

6/6/22

5/15/22

4/22/22

Raspberry Picking Tracker:

• 6/12/22 - 1 lb 1 oz
• 6/13/22 - 15 oz
• 6/14/22 - 1 lb 3 oz
• 6/15/22 - 1 lb 8 oz
• 6/16/22 - 1 lb 4 oz
• 6/17/22 - 1 lb 15 oz
• 6/18/22 - 1 lb 12 oz
• 6/19/22 - 1 lb 11 oz
• 6/20/22 - 1 lb 12 oz
• 6/21/22 - 1 lb 14 oz
• 6/22/22 - 2 lbs 1 oz
• 6/23/22 - 1 lb 10 oz
• 6/24/22 - 2 lb 12 oz
• 6/25/22 - 2 lb 13 oz
• 6/26/22 - 3 lb 6 oz
• 6/27/22 - 1 lb 11 oz
• 6/28/22 - 3 lb 14 oz
• 6/29/22 - 3 lb 6 oz
• 6/30/22 - 3 lb 14 oz
• 7/1/22 - 15 oz
• 7/2/22 - 2 lb 6 oz
• 7/3/22 - 1 lb 10 oz
• 7/4/22 - 10 oz
• 7/5/22 - 9 oz
• 7/6/22 - 9 oz
• 7/7/22 - 6 oz
• 7/10/22 - 10 oz
• 7/17/22 - 9 oz
• 
  
• 9/10/22 - 4 oz
• 9/13/22 - 5 oz
• 9/15/22 - 6 oz
• 9/27/22 - 5 oz
• 10/10/22 - 6 oz

• Running Total - 50 lbs 4 oz

Growing Notes:

• 5/15/22
• The plants are doing pretty well.  I have a lot of growth on the old canes and quite a bit of new growth coming up from the roots as well.  This is true of all 4 beds
• I've been spending a lot of time in this last couple weeks weeding the beds (and the gravel around the beds) as well as applying Blood and Bone Meal and top dressing with compost.  So far, I've just about finished this on 2 of the beds.
• We have lots of buds forming on the plants but no flowers yet
• It's been a rainy couple of weeks so I haven't had to water yet
• 6/6/22 - I'm starting to see a bit of ripe fruit on the plans.  Probably another week or two before picking really begins.
• 7/4/22 -  I've been picking for most of the month now and the fruit is starting to wind down.  I'm quiete a ways off my average this year with 46 lbs of fruit.  My Prelude were pretty weak to start out with which was likely part of this.  We haven't had a lot of rain this last couple weeks.  I noticed that the ripe fruit is drying out on the Nova raspberry which is likely due to insufficient water.  I did water the plants this weekend but it seems I waited too long.  46 lbs is still a lot of fruit and a lower yield year will help me make more room in the freezer for next year.