When is the best time to plant raspberries

[beginnergardener]

I am looking at buying Raspberry : Tulameen, does anyone know when the best ime to plant this fruit is and are they suitable for containers.
Thankyou

[sarraceniac]

I take it you are buying new canes BG? Assuming they are bare root (the usual) and not pot grown then soon is the answer. They want planting when dormant, in the winter. If your container is big enough then they will grow in one but to be quite honest I have never met anyone who has actually tried it. They put out suckers/runners and do like to spread their shallow roots around horizontally so I wouldn't try it if it can be avoided. If you only have containers then I suggest you find the biggest that you can and .... what the hell, go for it.

[WrexTheDragon]

I grow Tulameen in containers and it works for me very well, they are just coming to the end of fruiting for me. I am not sure when the growers collect the canes, but I normally see them being sold in sets of 10 around March/April. These days most growers use cold storage and this can change the growing season.

Use a heavy soil like John Innes 3 and large pots. You need to make sure they are not blown over by any wind. You also need 8ft canes to support each plant. I did try one pot this year with 3 plants growing up against a central 8ft cane, but was not impressed, so will use my normal methods next year of one cane per plant.

Good luck.

[pip1954]

hi i have just bought a pot of four canes in homebase ,when we got the pot home i emptied the pot out to find there is four single canes in one pot, it is like they potted four canes in on pot to make it look like it was a bigger plant,
they have been cut down to about 10" tall very recently will they start to grow (as there is no leaves at the moment) this year or next .

[sarraceniac]

I have quite a few rasps, both earlies and lates, Pip. They still have leaves on, in fact the autumn ones are still fruiting (delicious they are too). I suspect that your potted ones have not been exactly looked after by Homebase. I bought some yellow fruiting ones at Wilko two weeks ago (well rasps are our favourite soft fruits) for 50p each because they have no sign of life. I have had some wonderful bargains this way and I strongly suspect that if you just plant them out then yours (and mine) will kick back in next year. If you got 4 canes for the price of one then you did well too but don't expect loads of fruit next year. They will probably take a couple of years to start producing properly. Gardening certainly teaches patience.

[wollyanna]

I'll have to take a trip to Wilkos I have been trying to find some yellow raspberries for quite a while. When I was young many moons ago our next door neighbour a little old lady had some beautiful tasting ones.

[rustylady]

September is a good time for planting raspberries, but they're not really suited to container gardening. They were originally woodland plants so would do much better in a semi-shaded border.

[starloc]

I bought mine bare root last year, delivered aout november and i forgot to plant them till about christmas, i was sure they were dead,

I put them in 3L plastic bag pots till they were sprouting, once they were sprouting in about april/may i put them in morrisons flower buckets, they have all grown long shoots, most over 4 foot, some upto 6 foot,

i got quite a lot of fruit on the autumn fruiting ones and there still fruiting now, growing in 10L flower buckets, fertilised a few times during the year with mirracle grow, and some blood fish and bone and superphosphate when i planted them

Looking at them now, though they may be fine next year, but year after they will need repotting to bigger pot, or spliting up to more pots, im planting some in the floor but most are staying in pots as they seem fine in pots

[beginnergardener]

Thankyou all, unfortunatly i only have containers to be able to grow them so will give it a go and take your advice wrexthedragon on how you have done it.
Fingers crossed.

[Eco-Chic]

T&M are despatching new canes from November and are recommending growing up wigwams and obelisks if container growing Raspberry : Tulameen (Fruit)

[bluemoon]

hi i have just bought a pot of four canes in homebase ,when we got the pot home i emptied the pot out to find there is four single canes in one pot, it is like they potted four canes in on pot to make it look like it was a bigger plant,
they have been cut down to about 10" tall very recently will they start to grow (as there is no leaves at the moment) this year or next .

This is how you buy them, as groups of individual canes, often bare root rather than in a pot, but still, one per pot would have worked out as a very expensive cane. It isn't to make the plant look bigger so (for once) Homebase aren't trying to pull a fast one. Though it depends how much they charged, I suppose. I paid £8.99 for 10 bare root canes a year or two ago - except 10 didn't look like many so I bought 20, which is why I now have enough raspberries to equal the GNP of Poland - You now have 4 raspberry plants and they will grow into large plants next year. It depends upon the variety as the whether they will fruit next year or the year after.

[WrexTheDragon]

I use 40cm pots with 3 canes per pot.
I feed with potash and blood fish and bone in about feb.


good luck.

[sarraceniac]

As this seems to be a friendly thread (yes I know that they all are on GYO) may I just put in an aside about rasps?

I have loads of birds visiting my garden, in fact Boss lady actively encourages them. When I first started growing soft fruits (about the time Noah invented automatic irrigation) everybody said, and I'm talking about serious gardeners, not chuck in a few seeds and see if it grows people, that I had to protect them from horrible things like wood pigeons (we have loads round here).

The point is that I never put up netting, wires, CDs or anything. And the birds never touch them.

My own theory is that Boss lady's perpetual feed and seed top up keeps them so full that they have no appetite left. Anyone got a better theory? A free Glen Moy runner to the best answer.

[beginnergardener]

As this seems to be a friendly thread (yes I know that they all are on GYO) may I just put in an aside about rasps?

I have loads of birds visiting my garden, in fact Boss lady actively encourages them. When I first started growing soft fruits (about the time Noah invented automatic irrigation) everybody said, and I'm talking about serious gardeners, not chuck in a few seeds and see if it grows people, that I had to protect them from horrible things like wood pigeons (we have loads round here).

The point is that I never put up netting, wires, CDs or anything. And the birds never touch them.

My own theory is that Boss lady's perpetual feed and seed top up keeps them so full that they have no appetite left. Anyone got a better theory? A free Glen Moy runner to the best answer.

Hope they leave mine alone, i feed the birds as well so hopefully like yours their be to full to worry about the fruit.
I did read somewhere that the birds are after the water in fruit, it offers little nutritional benefit so if you give them a bird bath they do not bother with the fruit so much.

[bluemoon]

Birds never touch mine either. I grow black, red and white currants, green and red gooseberries, raspberries, apples, plums and strawberries and the only thing I have problems with are the strawbs. Even then the problems are from slugs and mice rather than birds. This year I've dug up the entire strawberry patch and I'm going to start again with them in hanging baskets. Birds are encouraged into my plots, and there are plenty around, but I've never even had to consider a fruit cage. Wood pigeons would decimate my brassicas if I let them, but the fruit is just left alone.