from wild to cultivation raspberry

[swaine]

a couple of years ago on a forest foraging expedition in deepest darkest Crewe, I came across a patch of wild raspberries, the canes standing 12ft tall in the undergrowth very sparsely thorned and the canes topped with tiny little crimson jewels not bigger than a thumbnail, bending the canes down to reach the jewels, whilst keeping my senses alert to possible tiger attacks or slipping into the raging river to my right (a small brook) I managed to pick a couple of ripe berries, which made my face contort with there tangy wickedness, regaining my senses I stumbled out of the jungle to the safety of home, the berry I saved I sowed the seed and this year its fruited, (pic attached) taken alongside the raspberry Lloyd George, the sowed seed has given me 23 plants (4 of which perfectly thornless!!!) canes growing between 5-6ft, and giving a real nice crop of raspberries of a good size and flavour, not bad from wild seed,

[hamesy]

Thanks excellent. Love the fact you had to face tigers and the raging river

[boundtothesoil]

One of the hills near where I live was clear-felled of conifers three years ago. Since then, the space has been taken over by all sorts of species, prominent amongst them, gorse, brambles and wild raspberries. I often go walking up there and, inspired by your post, yesterday I looked at the range of types/sizes of raspberries (now ripening). Out of about 100 spatially distinct clumps of canes, there were at least three that are producing raspberries large enough to pass muster in the garden. They tasted quite good, so I picked sufficient to make 1.5 lbs of 'wild raspberry' jam. All three of these 'above average' wild raspberry clusters seemed to be producing highly vigorous new cane growth for next year, compared with the majority of the other wilds. In fact they looked very much healthier than the canes in my garden. I'm quite tempted to domesticate a few of them.

[swaine]

excellent, its a great and interesting project to undertake, wild strawberries from seed can be a year turn around from seed, raspberries 2-3 years from wild seeds so all short term projects, with excellent results to be had
keep you eyes open for any wild yellow raspberries that would be interesting to work with seed, I have been told Scotland is best for the wild yellows raspberries ,ive never seen wild yellows, but live in hope of finding a patch,
also wild gooseberries is on my list of to find to try and grow out,
I have done bilberries from wild seed, the plants came good and a little more productive than the wild patch I found,
stew

One of the hills near where I live was clear-felled of conifers three years ago. Since then, the space has been taken over by all sorts of species, prominent amongst them, gorse, brambles and wild raspberries. I often go walking up there and, inspired by your post, yesterday I looked at the range of types/sizes of raspberries (now ripening). Out of about 100 spatially distinct clumps of canes, there were at least three that are producing raspberries large enough to pass muster in the garden. They tasted quite good, so I picked sufficient to make 1.5 lbs of 'wild raspberry' jam. All three of these 'above average' wild raspberry clusters seemed to be producing highly vigorous new cane growth for next year, compared with the majority of the other wilds. In fact they looked very much healthier than the canes in my garden. I'm quite tempted to domesticate a few of them.