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Q. I’ve never been sure how to manage my raspberry canes after they stop producing berries at midsummer. The planting has become quite crowded with newly produced canes. The ones I grow produce only the one, early summer crop.
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A. When berry production ends, cut the canes that have borne the berries down to the ground. Then, thin the new canes to leave only the strongest, with enough spacing between them to allow for good air circulation and full exposure to sunlight.
With the thinning done, water the planting well before mulching the canes generously with a nourishing compost.
Q. Once again this summer, my raspberries are not sweet. I grow several different kinds, and only the yellow ones have a bit of sweetness. We fertilize, and water twice a week.
A. Raspberry varieties will differ in their degrees of sweetness, but in general, common causes of bland flavours in the berries are overwatering or/and over-fertilizing with nitrogen.
When berries taste sour, in my experience a common cause is picking before they are really ripe and fully coloured. I’ve come across this curious habit often in my gardening life. Once, when I was away, a neighbour picked my raspberries in exchange for half the harvest. I returned home to bags of frozen raspberries that were not fully coloured, and sour.
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Over the years I’ve pared my raspberry planting down to one variety: Fall Gold, a raspberry that is most forgiving in this respect. Even picked slightly unripe, that is when the berry needs a light tugging to remove it from the cane, the golden berries are still sweet. With other varieties I’ve grown, the berries are optimally sweet only when they almost fall off the cane at a touch.
I am not presuming that picking prematurely is the issue with your un-sweet berries. Still, it’s always a good, and pleasurable, habit to taste-test a little as you pick, to best gauge the look of berries at their peak flavour and sweetness.
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