How To Get A Good Harvest Of Raspberries?

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Raspberries are an extremely fragrant berry, incredibly tasty and incredibly healthy: they are very rich in fiber, and also contain an impressive set of useful trace elements and vitamins. And she is also considered an excellent antidepressant and antiseptic and an excellent helper for hypertension or anemia! And just to enjoy jam or all kinds of raspberry desserts, too, many do not mind! How to grow a good harvest of raspberries, so that juicy, appetizing berries are enough for the embodiment of all healing and culinary ideas?

Ground requirements

Excellent quality and impressive harvest volumes of raspberries are highly dependent on the right choice of planting site. Since raspberry bushes are extremely partial to good lighting, it is recommended to plant young shoots exclusively in sunny areas. The relief on the site, ideally, should be flat, without numerous hills or slopes, and the soil should be light and fertile (loam or black soil). At the same time, cereals or legumes are considered the best precursors for raspberries, but in areas where peppers, tomatoes or potatoes used to grow, it is better not to plant raspberries - the above predecessors actively take useful compounds from the soil that are vital for raspberries both for full growth and for the fertility of her bushes.

When and how to plant?

Raspberries are endowed with the ability to reproduce at a truly lightning speed - having planted only one single bush in the first year, the next year in the same place you will be able to see a dozen or even more berry bushes. You can use this feature in order to expand berry plantings, or you can begin to limit the further spread of raspberries by removing unnecessary young shoots.

As a rule, raspberries are planted in autumn or spring. The width and depth of the pits for planting it should be about forty centimeters. A mixture of ash, humus and superphosphate is first poured onto the bottom of each hole. Then the seedlings are carefully placed there, making sure that their roots are about two to three centimeters below the soil level, after which they are carefully sprinkled with soil. Further, the ground around each shoot is lightly crushed and watered. Usually raspberries are planted in rows (this approach will prevent thickening of the plantings and the struggle of plants for sunlight), at the same time constructing supporting trellises for berry bushes. By the way, tied up raspberries growing in rows give seven to eight times more harvest than chaotically planted thickets! A distance of about 70 - 100 centimeters should be maintained between the plants in each row, the distance between the rows themselves should be at least one and a half meters, and the width of these rows usually reaches one meter. And, which is important, later, after planting berry bushes, in no case should the soil be excessively compacted, or dry out, or overgrown with weeds!

Care

Both in spring and with the onset of autumn, raspberry bushes are pruned, and all excess growth is also removed. An equally important point is the attachment of raspberry shoots to the trellises, which was already mentioned earlier.

Since raspberries prefer to grow on moist soil, but at the same time absolutely do not tolerate waterlogging, during the entire growing season it is necessary to ensure that the soil does not dry out - water it only as needed. But in the fall, watering should be abundant, since during this period young shoots are formed. Mulching will also do a good job - straw, peat, as well as newspapers or dry grass are especially well suited for these purposes: this approach will help preserve moisture in the summer season, and in winter it will reliably protect plant roots from frost.

As for dressings and fertilizers, it is recommended to feed raspberries with ash, as well as nitrogen-containing or complex fertilizers in early spring. And in the fall, you can safely add organic fertilizers such as chicken manure or cow dung to the soil - they are considered ideal in all respects as fertilizers for this crop.

Prevention against insect pests will not be superfluous - for this purpose, spraying with such natural agents as onion peel or mustard powder diluted with water (for every ten liters of water - 100 grams of raw material). Do not even hesitate - with proper care and following these simple rules, raspberries will invariably delight you with wonderful harvests!