Blog: Get more fruit in a small garden
Raspberries are a very easy fruit to grow, even in a small space, and you can increase your yield by double-cropping autumn raspberries. Snow and ice prevented me from carrying out this task, but hopefully, it will have all melted soon!
Don’t expect a massive increase in fruit – the RHS reckons on just a five per cent improvement in yield overall. However, this method does mean your crop is spread over a longer season. I use mine as a fresh breakfast fruit usually, so it’s perfect for my needs. If you’re growing raspberries for preserves, aim for heavy-cropping summer varieties that crop over a short period, like Glen Ample. Read about new and exclusive raspberries.
Raised bed raspberries
I grow mine in a 1m square 30cm high raised bed in an attempt to keep them under control. Beware, as the canes can spread like wildfire – they pop up under the raised bed into the surrounding bed! Just to clarify, most raspberries come in two sorts – summer fruiting (floricane) and autumn fruiting (primocane).
The difference is not only in when they fruit but also in how you prune them, and here, I’ll be talking about the autumn-fruiting type. For more on growing and pruning, visit my raspberries page for in-depth details. Autumn-fruiting raspberries flower and fruit on the current season’s growth. The usual pruning for the later fruiting types is as follows:
- Cut back all canes to ground level in February.
- Reduce overcrowded canes and remove suckers growing away from rows in summer.
Double-cropping method
By using the double-cropping method, you can harvest in summer without having to grow the early-fruiting cultivars as well. To do this, your canes need to be well established. Here’s how to do it: Instead of cutting all the previous season’s canes down to the ground in February, choose 6-8 strong shoots per 1 metre row.
Prune off the fruited part of the canes to leave them about 1m high. Cut the other canes to ground level as usual. When the half-pruned canes have finished fruiting in the summer, cut them out at ground level. I’ll be interested to see if anyone else has tried double-cropping autumn raspberries – let me know!
