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Fruit & Orchards

Keeping Black Raspberry patch neat

13 years ago

I'm thinking of shoe horning in a black raspberry patch. The footprint would be long and narrow. The patch would run along the driveway. I'm concerned that those thorny canes might be a problem for people walking beside their car. Is it reasonable to train black raspberries to a flat fence-like trellis (sort of like blackberries) to create a fairly 2 dimensional plant?

If I tried to grow black raspberries this way, would it decrease fruit production?

Any other thoughts?

Thanks

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Comments (3)

denninmi
13 years ago
Yes, that's a great way to grow them. Keeps them neat and tidy.

No, it won't decrease yield if done properly. The main thing is to be sure to tie up and then prune back the canes as they grow during the early to mid summer, so that they develop a lot of lateral branches -- those will bear the fruit the next season, so the more branching the more fruit.
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Scott F Smith
13 years ago
The lateral branches tend to want to come out and scratch you. So be prepared for quite a bit of tying back work to keep them in the main thicket. Red raspberries are much easier in that they do not send out these lateral shoots. I have some blacks in a narrow spot and since I usually don't have the time to get the shoots put away they have many side shoots growing out and making a general annoyance.

Scott
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larry_gene
13 years ago
Black raspberries will produce along the length of the main stem that has not been topped to promote laterals, but this is not as productive as a multi-lateral cane.

You can select to keep the naturally-occuring laterals that are headed in the fence axis direction, prune off the rest.

When laterals are very young they can be coaxed to go in the preferred direction. I keep my black-cap canes in a narrow plane by doing the above, as I only have 4-foot spacing between caneberry rows.
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