Ok, murky gave some great info, but I'm just going to start fresh with my answer because I think it's easier that way. First off, just to review, raspberry canes are biennial and the crown and roots are perennial. The canes the emerge from the ground in the spring and grow are called primocanes. In primocane-fruiting varieties, the primocanes will flower and bear fruit in the late-summer and fall of the year (thus the term fall-fruiting). You can manage a primocane-fruiting variety to produce both a spring and fall crop. To do so, you'll want to remove all floricanes after they fruit and die, and prune off the portion of the primocane that fruited in the fall. The next spring, the portion of the cane that didn't fruit in the fall will fruit. If you want just the fall primocane crop, you can simply mow off all of the canes during the winter. In floricane-fruiting varieties, the primocanes remain vegetative all year, and go dormant in the winter. In the spring, these canes, now called floricanes flower and bear fruit (thus the term spring-fruiting). After fruiting, the floricanes die and should be pruned out. This can be done anytime after fruiting but before new growth begins in the spring. You can also prune the primocanes during the first, non-fruiting growing season to encourage lateral development and increased fruiting the followoing year. I'm not sure why the canes that fruited for you this year are sprouting some new growth. This may be from secondary buds, but whatever it is, I'm sure it won't produce any fruit before frost, and won't survive the winter. I'd just go ahead and prune out the dead canes. I really think what you have is a floricane fruiting variety, because if you had a primocane fruiting variety you'd have flowers and fruit right now.

It doesn't even have to be frost. Several of mine in pots have cold-kissed (haha) leaves, from temps getting down to the low 40's. In 11 years of growing hostas I've never had so many different hostas affected by our unusual cold weather. I don't understand the "crumbly" part though. Photos would really help. -Babka

I also use rainwater and posted this before... Here is a link (2005) to how I water my garden ... Deep watering for heavy feeders growing on upright trellises I should add the nowadays I also use those rather large plastic pots you get when you buy large plants - fill about half-way with leaves and compost (just enuff so the water just ooozes out the pot holes) then dump in rain water from a 5 gal bucket. So the nutrients leak out of the pot with the water. This keeps the plant leaves from getting wet when sprayed from above and allows the water to soak deeply in one area and not be wicked away by the hot summer air. At times I will add coffee grounds to these pots too. Also anything so the water leaks out slowly and soaks in deeply close to the bucket/pot. Keep in mind the plants feed from the root tips and the root tips may be a long way from where the plant stem enters the soil. That is where I place the pots/buckets. Check your root depth/length here...ROOT DEVELOPMENT OF VEGETABLE CROPS

I see this is an old post but new people may have these same questions and this past fall i did the same thing that g6342856 did. I had a weedy area about 4000 sq feet on side of house that had agressive weeds and only a few small patches of healthy grass .So i first mowed to lowest possible setting then round up for a month like morpheuspa said. Then water the dirt each week to see any areas you missed then repeat round up again. After a months time either level the area or rototill .If area is level just rough up the existing top soil and sow the seed. Before you do this incorporate some starter fertilizer into the soil that prevents weeds and does not interfere with new seedlings. Then your good. I recently filmed a two month renovation i did in August and i used titan rx turf type tall fescue with good results and im now weed free you can see video below. It took some hard work but well worth the wait