Given that you're in Wisconsin, and have a fairly short growing season, you might have a hard time getting a fall (primocane) crop to ripen before your first frost. If you go the primocane route, definitely get the earliest ripening one available.

The maintenance is easier on primocane-fruiting varieties, because all you have to to for pruning is mow them all down, but I promise, it's REALLY easy to tell dead floricanes from dormant primocanes when you're pruning in the winter.

My suggestion, if you are going to be getting a few, is to get a couple of each. That way you will have fruit for a longer period of time.

Echoing Fruit Girl, I have found that summer bearing plants are not hard to maintain, as the pruning is not difficult. I prune them as soon as they stop bearing fruit in July so it is easy to tell which are which, and it is not terribly difficult work. I also do some quick maintenance in the spring, again not difficult.

In my experience, fall bearing plants will bear for 5-6 weeks depending on frost, while the summer plants bear for only 3-4.

I also recommend the earliest ripening varieties if you go for the fall bearing plants.

Good luck.

Thanks a lot for the advice!

I'm only planning on one planting area. Will summer- and fall-bearing varities mix together and cause pruning problems? Will they be hard to tell apart? I know that raspberries spread!

Thanks!

I have mine in the same row, fall for half the row and summer for the other half (they have yet to mix yet after 4-5 years, but I'm sure they will eventually).

They both look the same, so they are hard to tell apart at certain times of the year, but I don't see this as a problem for pruning, as the basic idea is to prune them after they fruit, so it is easy to tell which ones just fruited and need to be pruned.

Or, to stop spreading, you can put in an underground plastic barrier/wall about 8-12 inches down. This would stop any spreading as raspberry roots that form suckers go down only a few inches. (I would not do this, but I have heard of others that do).

Personally, I find that having fresh berries for most of the summer/fall is well worth the minimal additional work of caring for the two types of plants. However, if you are growing for canning/freezing/jam, then I would do all summer since you get your full crop over a couple of weeks.

I like the two types idea. I have everbearing (fall-bearing) raspberries. I got them from OSH, with the label "Bababerries" on them, although you can never trust the labels on OSH, so I have always assumed it was just Heritage.

The ones I grow, though, are FANTASTIC. They start to flower in mid-June. I get my first berries around August 1, and they continue all the way through to Christmas or New Years. That is a LONG harvest season, which is great for a home gardener. Berries for your cereal every day! Now, I'm in southern California, so you can't expect that long a harvest, but they are definitely worth the try.

One nice advantage to the everbearing (primocane, fall-bearing) raspberries is that you can get fruit the very first year. I was astonished by that.

Watch out for the dead canes. Those tiny thorns are puny compared to blackberries, but they can be pretty horrible at the end of the year when the vine is dead and the thorns become brittle and start to travel around. You'll need a magnifying glass and good tweezers to pull them out of unusual places. Put dead canes in trashbags immediately and close them.

Thanks for the input everyone! I had no idea I could grow both kinds in the same general area. I bought some of each and hope to plant this weekend.

thanks!
Elizabeth