Something new for 2017 - part 2 Black raspberry

We started 2016 with a long row of summer raspberries comprising of two varieties - Glen Ample and Tulameen. We were off to a promising start as all the canes produced new green shoots. The earlier fruiting, Glen Ample were producing flower buds and then suddenly the leaves started to go brown and shrivel and the plants just gave up.

It remains a mystery as to what struck the Glen Ample canes as I couldn't find any signs of the usual raspberry diseases and the Tulameen canes growing alongside them were unaffected and went on to produce a good crop.

We are, however left with a planting gap and have been considering what to replace them with.

Tulameen produced plenty of summer raspberries which were supplemented by our purple raspberry, Glencoe. Our All Gold yellow fruiting autumn raspberry kicked in once the summer fruits had finished cropping. Hopefully next year the red autumn fruiting variety Joan J will join the party.

We like to grow fruits that are a little different and wanted something suitable that would grow along our allotments boundary. I came up with a black raspberry. It is claimed that the fruit is a superfruit, packed with health promoting properties, that knocks any other superfruits into second place.

It grows from a single plant like our Glencoe raspberry. Apparently the fruit  is a similar colour to a blackberry but formed like a raspberry. I maybe able to tell you more about it at a later date.

Our plant arrived yesterday. It was a potted specimen but has been popped into a larger pot which will live in our greenhouse until we feel that the time is right to plant it out on the plot.

For now we have to consider how we plant it. Being related to the raspberry I am concerned that whatever led to the demise of the raspberries may still be lurking in the soil so the best plan may be to remove a 'holeful' of the original soil and fill with some new from elsewhere.

Another possibility is that waterlogging killed the raspberry plants and so we will also use gravel to improve drainage in the planting area. I don't think we can do more then than to wait and see how the plant grows.

We won't get any fruit this year as the black raspberry fruits on canes produced the previous year and as you can see from the photos, our new plant hasn't any canes that are likely to produce fruit.

We gardners have to be patient don't we?

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