Showing the raspberries who's boss

Raspberries were the first crop I grew successfully. When we first moved to Wisconsin, our city house in Madison had a very tiny yard. I tried that first summer to grow a garden, but it didn't produce anything but a nest of wild bunnies. (Looking back on it, my garden patch was much too shady to grow tomatoes in a cool Wisconsin summer.)

The next year I decided to try my luck at fruits and took a trip to the local garden center to buy bareroot blueberry plants. My mind was set on baking blueberry muffins. The helpful garden pro convinced me that it would be a huge mistake to plant blueberries in my part of the state. Although I hadn't had a soil test, she assured me that all of the soil around the county is very alkaline, and I would spend too much time and money modifying my soil to make it acidic. She pointed me to my future friend, the raspberry.

At the time, however, I associated raspberries with chocolate (usually raspberry syrup on some overly sweet chocolate cake). I didn't much like these fruits and was sad to lose my dream of blueberries. But I took home 6 bareroot plants anyway, assuming they would die like my first year's garden, and I planted them in the sunniest spot in the yard along the fence line and mostly ignored them.

By the second summer they were 3 feet wide and growing into the neighbors yard across the fence. By the third summer they were out of control, and I used the lawn mower to keep down the new sprouts. The plants produced a good crop of berries those third and fourth years-- enough for lots of fresh handfuls eaten right from the garden, many breakfast fruit salads, and several gallons to store. I learned how to freeze and use them in many wonderful recipes.



Fast forward a few years to our current house with a nice sized plot of land, and my raspberries were haphazardly planted in the middle of the yard. Truth be told, I planted them in a circle around an old satelite dish in an attempt to hide it. (We have since come to our senses dug out the offending dish.)

But once again the berries were a disaster. They were in a circle and hard to pick. I wanted them to spread (more berries!) but this messy circle patch was not going to work!



I consulted several online university extension sites and found a cheap and easy trellis plan from the University of Colorado.

I cut back the raspberries into two distinct rows, which was not as difficult to do with a circle of plants as I thought. As new shoots come up, I will keep the ones that are in the correct row location and cut back any that are out of place.

Brief safety message: before I did any digging I had the utility lines marked. My lot has underground wires running all over the place.



Two stakes and two wires per row make up my simple trellis system. I used bread ties to attach the canes to the wires. 



Once they were all tied up, I applied some organic, time-released fertilizer and spread on a thick layer of mulch. This fall I will add a healthy layer of compost and add mulch one more time.



Now I sit and wait for the buds to open and my plants to come back to life. I'm looking forward to a good harvest this summer and a freezer full of berries for next winter!