Easy Guide to Planting Raspberries in Your Garden

Growing it Simply Garden Series: Raspberries

This was our very favorite addition to our garden last year. It is amazing that you can plant one small plant at the beginning of spring and end up with bowls and bowls of berries by the end of summer. What a fun new plant you can enjoy the first year of planting!

Our raspberries are just off our back porch and it is really fun to go out and pick every other day in the height of the season. The kids love picking berries for a fresh late summer snack!

The How To

Raspberries can be planted in early spring, before the last frost. My biggest tip to growing raspberries simply is to get a live raspberry plant from your local garden center. They will also sell bare root, which i’ve tried and failed. but nothing has taken off so quickly like a real baby raspberry plant in a pot.

The ideal soil ph for raspberries is 5.5-7.0 which is much higher than that of blueberries. I did not have any trouble simply planting them without amending our soil. But here is a link to instructions if you need them.

Choose your planting spot for your raspberry plant. Keep in mind they like full sun. If you have partial sun you might not get as many berries. You can plant multiple plants 18-24 inches apart and in rows of 6.5-8 ft apart. I only planted one plant and it was plenty for a small family garden and multiplied really well!

Then dig your hole twice as deep and as wide as your plant. As you fill in your hole, fill with regular dirt and Miracle Grow Garden Soil and plant your raspberry plant. This gives plants the nutrients they need to take off growing. (I’ve tried potted vegetables side by side one with potting soil and the other with Miracle Grow Soil and the Miracle Grow plants grew twice as big and much better veggies!)

Watering instructions:

“Water is important when young plants are being established. Water raspberries plants during the day. Give them about 1″-2″ per week during growing season and up to 4″ per week during harvest. The plants are rather shallow rooted, so moisture needs to be at the surface” from arborday.org

Raspberry Trellis

Raspberries need some sort of structure to support their canes. This can be done with wood or metal stakes. You string wire between the supports to give support to the growing canes. Here are some pictures below.

Pruning

There are two types of raspberry plants and therefor two types of pruning. Summer-bearing will give you fruit in the summer. They will produce fruit on their second year canes. So you do not need to prune first year canes.

I have and love Ever-bearing. You get a small crop in the summer and a large one late summer. You can prune them down to the ground each year in the early spring. Then new canes will spring up during the growing season.

I hope you enjoyed this simple planting guide. Let me know you grow raspberries turn out!