Thursday, August 7

Out with the old and in with the new

We thought the Glencoe raspberry was going to provide us with lots of fruit this year - we were wrong! To start with it was full of promise.


In the end though we only managed a few berries. Fruiting was over really quickly.


The Tayberry on the other hand provided us and the blackbirds with a steady supply of fruit. From the last third of June and throughout July we picked berries on every plot visit - much to the disgust of the blackbird who tutted at us whenever we picked. 


The tayberry was inherited when we took over the plot and so is a fairly 'ancient' specimen but it produces consistently without any cosseting or feeding from us.

Each year it sends up many new canes which I thin out a little as they are produced. Once the fruiting is over it is time to give the tayberry more serious attention.  All the canes produced last year which have fruited this year are cut out completely. The thorny canes are really long and entangled so the easiest/safest way to deal with them is to cut them out in pieces and remove them bit by bit.

This done the remaining newly produced canes are thinned out again and the survivors tied into the supporting fence. (It is is now debatable whether it is the fence that is supporting the tayberry or the tayberry that is supporting the fence).

The resulting arrangement isn't pretty but the look will improve as the canes produce more side shoots and leaves.
Unlike other raspberries Glencoe also produces clumps of long whippy canes. It also produces fruit on the previous year's canes and so has been given a similar treatment. Old canes have been removed completely but, as it is less prolific in new cane production, all the new canes have been tied in to the supporting wires.  
We didn't expect the newly planted raspberries to produce any fruit this year but we have managed a small trickle of fruits. The plants are producing strong new canes albeit rather shorter than expected  - maybe down to the dry weather. The new canes have been tied to wires and any old growth will be removed.
The other fruiting plant that needs a similar pruning regime is the blackberry. Happily this year I only have the thornless blackberry to deal with. It's so much easier and less fraught to train than the super vigorous plant with deadly thorns, so much so that we are seriously thinking of removing the thorny one altogether. Last year it was cut back completely and is currently regrowing.

Our thornless blackberry is trained along three wires - the new canes have been trained as they were produced whilst still pliable The canes that have produced fruit this year will be cut out once fruiting is finished.
Not only is this plant more benign than its vicious relative but it also produces lovely large berries.
Thank you Tanya for recommending of Loch Ness - our thornless variety. We are thinking of planting a second plant if we can decide where we could fit one in.

Thank you again to everyone who has voted for my blog since my last thank you. Voting closes either tonight or tomorrow - not sure which. Currently my blog is second with some excellent blogs snapping at my heels. It's better than I anticipated so you have certainly spared my blushes.

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett

22 comments:

  1. I so love raspberries. Sadly ours is worse for the wear. It is in the rain shadow of the house - not something I knew about at first. So it died way back. This year I put in a soaker hose and it is so much happier. I hope it spreads back to fill the bed soon. As it produces the very large tasty berries.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We lost a whole row the year before last, Daphne. I think they got too as the ground was sodden that winter.

      Delete
  2. The berries look so juicy! It reminds me to pluck my mulberries! The only berry I can plant over here! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Good luck with the vote.
    Here raspberries were plentiful but they mostly produced when we were away for almost 2 weeks. The raccoon, blue jays and cedar waxwings did not leave us many.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Alain - shame about the raspberries.

      Delete
  4. I am so envious. I have just a dabbling of berries this year. The winter was hard on everything. Thanks for all of the information on the different types of raspberries.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have autumn raspberries too which are just coming up to fruiting, Bonnie that are pruned differently again. I hope that yours do better next year.

      Delete
  5. I love berries, but it's not easy fir me to grow it here. Your thornless berry is reminding me to wild berry that we often found it on the slope and the edge of the wood when I was a little girl.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have blackberries growing wild in hedgerows here, Endah but the canes have thorns and the berries are smaller

      Delete
  6. Loch Ness. I'll remember that. Your fruits are far bigger than the ones I picked. Heading over to vote now!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ours produces fruit fairly early too Victoria. Thanks for the vote

      Delete
  7. I still need to get to grips with my raspberries and blackberries, it's a learning curve as I've never grown them before. The raspberries produced lots of fruit though, enough to freeze some too, though I'm not very keen on them but Mick likes them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They're fairly straightforward, Jo you'll soon get the hang of it

      Delete
  8. Re the competition: don't forget to "dip" as you approach the finishing line! My "Autumn Bliss" raspberries are just getting going now. I hope they will be better than last year, which was very poor. If not, they will probably be dug up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It would need the sort of dip where your chin scrapes the floor Mark as I'm about 40 votes behind the leader.

      Our Joan J is an offspring of Autumn Bliss and just starting to produce fruit now but still unripe ones.

      Delete
  9. I'm a big fan of the tayberry as well. I wouldn't mind a thornless blackberry either, I get shredded by thorns and stung by nettles when I pick from the one that's in the hedge next to my plot. I've tackled the tayberry already, just the raspberries to do now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The raspberries are nothing like as vicious are they, CJ?

      Delete
  10. I amazed how little fruit you got as it all looked so very promising, you just can't predict the outcome can you. The blackberry fruit looks delicious.xxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You can't count your fruit 'til it is picked, Snowbird

      Delete
  11. I am poised to start picking our autumn raspberries (polka), not sure I could be bothered with summer fruiting berries, for all that I love to eat them. Perhaps if I had more space. Though I do really like the idea of tayberries...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Be warned tayberries are vicious and vigorous Janet. Let's hope we both get some lovely autumn raspberries

      Delete

Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment - it is great to hear from you and know that there are people out there actually reading what I write! Come back soon.
(By the way any comments just to promote a commercial site, or any comments not directly linked to the theme of my blog, will be deleted)
I am getting quite a lot of spam. It is not published and is just deleted. I have stopped sifting through it and just delete any that ends up in my spam folder in one go so I am sorry if one of your messages is deleted accidentally.
Comments to posts over five days old are all moderated.