How To Prune Raspberries - The Definitive Guide

Pruning Raspberries Made Easy! As a low-maintenance, high-yield crop, its pretty hard to beat either summer-bearing or ever-bearing raspberries. They don't require much from us and are virtually beginner-proof, however, the one thing we can do to ensure raspberry success is proper pruning!
In this video, I'll go over all the steps you need to know for pruning your own backyard raspberries, as well as timing, shoot identification, and life cycle strategies. Let's make next year your best raspberry year yet!
Hey, for those that don't know, the website is now live! Check it out here, there's going to be some exciting new things happening!: theripetomatofarms.ca/
2022 is the Year of the Garden! We deserve it after the last little while, and growing our own food and self sufficiency is just the reward we need to get back on track!
For more information on all your gardening questions, check out my other videos!:
3 Types Of Raspberry Shoots: • Raspberry Anatomy - Ga...
Guide To Winterizing Your Strawberries: • Winterizing Your Straw...
Growing Container Garlic: • Growing Garlic In Cont...
Planting Strawberries: • Planting Strawberries ...
How To Grow Potatoes - The Definitive Guide: • How To Grow Potatoes -...
Winter Composting Tips: • Tips For Winter Compos...
Harvesting Garlic: • Harvesting Your Garlic...
Fertilizing Peppers: • Fertilizing Your Peppe...
DIY Safe and Natural Aphid Spray: • DIY Natural Aphid And ...
Garlic Spacing Experiment: • Garlic Spacing Experiment
How To Grow Strawberries!: • How To Grow Strawberri...
Fertilizing Strawberries: • Fertilizing Strawberry...
How To Grow Garlic: • How To Grow Garlic - T...
Baking Soda Aphid and Insect Spray: • Baking Soda Pesticide ...
6 Benefits Of Hydrogen Peroxide!: • 6 Benefits Of Hydrogen...
Pruning Pepper Plants Experiment!: • Don't Prune Your Peppers!
Direct Seeding vs Starter Plant: • Direct Seeding Vs Star...
100% Germination?: • Seed Germination - 5 R...
Seed Starting Soil: • How To Make Your Own S...
Seed Starting 101, The Basics!: • How To Start Vegetable...
Starting Tomato Seeds: • How To Grow Tomatoes P...
Starting Pepper Seeds: • Growing Peppers Part 1...
Starting Cucumber Seeds: • Video
Starting Zucchini Seeds: • Growing Zucchini Part ...
Starting Corn Seeds: • Growing Corn - Part 1 ...
Starting Pumpkin Seeds: • How To Grow Pumpkins -...
DIY Ultimate Potting Mix: • Make Your Own Potting ...
If you're just starting out gardening in 2022, please check out my Amazon Affiliate links below to get the right tools for the job! It doesn't cost you a cent, but this channel receives a small incentive for any items purchase through Amazon. Happy Gardening!
pH/Water/Light Meter
Amazon Canada: amzn.to/3yafmrV
Amazon USA: amzn.to/3OKRW30
Amazon UK: amzn.to/3nvEIM4
Composting Tumbler!
Amazon Canada: amzn.to/39CgtYw
Amazon USA: amzn.to/39Dha49
Amazon UK: amzn.to/3yLsKVf
Handy 12-piece Garden Tool Set!:
Amazon Canada: amzn.to/3jsNIyk
Amazon USA: amzn.to/2YZhFwx
Amazon UK: amzn.to/3qapNql
Hand Pruners:
Amazon Canada: amzn.to/2YSIFxP
Amazon USA: amzn.to/3q3Oftq
Amazon UK: amzn.to/2YR3Xf8
Watering Can:
Amazon Canada: amzn.to/39U4nIc
Amazon USA: amzn.to/2YR3p94
Amazon UK: amzn.to/3oX7hAa
Spray Gun:
Amazon Canada: amzn.to/3aBxijm
Amazon USA: amzn.to/3aL7UHS
Amazon UK: amzn.to/3ruol1Z
Gardening Gloves:
Amazon Canada: amzn.to/2Lt6ZDx
Amazon USA: amzn.to/3tzJ32t
Amazon UK: amzn.to/3jpf1cU
#raspberry #raspberries #gardening

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

If you're just starting out gardening in 2022, please check out my Amazon Affiliate links below to get the right tools for the job! It doesn't cost you a cent, but this channel receives a small incentive for any items purchase through Amazon. Happy Gardening! pH/Water/Light Meter Amazon Canada: amzn.to/3yafmrV Amazon USA: amzn.to/3OKRW30 Amazon UK: amzn.to/3nvEIM4 Composting Tumbler! Amazon Canada: amzn.to/39CgtYw Amazon USA: amzn.to/39Dha49 Amazon UK: amzn.to/3yLsKVf Handy 12-piece Garden Tool Set!: Amazon Canada: amzn.to/3jsNIyk Amazon USA: amzn.to/2YZhFwx Amazon UK: amzn.to/3qapNql Hand Pruners: Amazon Canada: amzn.to/2YSIFxP Amazon USA: amzn.to/3q3Oftq Amazon UK: amzn.to/2YR3Xf8 Watering Can: Amazon Canada: amzn.to/39U4nIc Amazon USA: amzn.to/2YR3p94 Amazon UK: amzn.to/3oX7hAa Spray Gun: Amazon Canada: amzn.to/3aBxijm Amazon USA: amzn.to/3aL7UHS Amazon UK: amzn.to/3ruol1Z Gardening Gloves: Amazon Canada: amzn.to/2Lt6ZDx Amazon USA: amzn.to/3tzJ32t Amazon UK: amzn.to/3jpf1cU

[@rmartinie]

Very very very good video!!! 👍🏻 I really loved your slower speech and pauses…letting my brain process all the info you were sharing! Thanks a million 😊

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Hey Richard, appreciate that! Thanks for watching!

[@reggiem1668]

Thanks! This is actually the first raspberry care video that didn’t still leave me scratching my head!

[@dorothyfrew6147]

Best pruning video on the internet. Bravo!

[@evaburgess3648]

I used your pruning method this last winter & we are being rewarded with abundant & very large fruit. Thankyou!

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Awesome to hear!

[@amyk6028]

Thank you so much for the best raspberry video I’ve ever watched!! 👍🏼

[@kaywatson6388]

Thank you for your KISS method ❤️. U r my No 1 stop for gardening advice. I’m K from Australia. I’ve finally grown excellent strawberries from your advice. Looking fwd to same from my new raspberries. Your quickies are genius! K

[@MichaelJosephJr934]

All this talk of Primo cane and Flori Cane is making my nose twitchy.

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

;-)

[@avermontlife]

Even though I have a large raspberry patch, I always learn something from your videos. We have a mix of bearing types, and our collection keeps growing. What I learned today was how to identify the basal suckers, and how to treat them like strawberry runners. Free food. You're awesome.

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Hey, thanks so much for checking it out and best of luck with all your berries in 2023!! 🙂

[@LibertarianRick]

This is what I was actually looking for - how to identify a sucker.- but I still don't know. So, how exactly does a sucker look different from a primocane?@@TheRipeTomatoFarms

[@sterrejimmink4592]

Really clear explanation! Thanks a lot ❤

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Cheers Sterre, thanks for watching!

[@camiladias9022]

Tks for your video! It was the most clear that I ever watched! ❤

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Thanks Camila, glad you liked it! Best of luck with your raspberries!

[@imanoiam]

What a wonderful video, educational yet enjoyable! Now I know how to deal with my messy entangled raspberry bushes! Thank you so much!

[@luizadacosta5521]

I have been so confused by all of this and you have made it so clear!! Top job

[@capcats]

Love the sucker joke !! 😂

[@isador4784]

Did ya make the game today? Great second half. Dad had a great raspberry patch. Every year he would take the excess, pack them in old yogurt containers with sugar and freeze them. What a delight to have them in our cereal during the winter and early spring. YUM!

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

100% I did.....VERY satisfying end to the game, ha ha! :-)

[@nightowl9176]

This is such a great, informative video. Thanks so much for posting. I wish I had this information for the past few years, as I truly kept giving the wrong care to my raspberry bushes.

[@roseamey370]

Finally, a really good explanation

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Cheers rose, thanks for watching! 🙂

[@correzecyclingholidays6419]

Really well explained - thank you so much!

[@phyllisroberts7855]

Great explanation, Thanks

[@carmellayates2503]

I'm not growing raspberry but this lesson was fantastic .

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Thanks Carmella, always appreciated! :-)

[@vasi3969]

Thanks for all the info ! Great video !

[@JonSteitzer]

Great guide

[@billbalch6549]

I hope to get my greatest harvest next season, thank for your guidance Jeff!

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Best of luck Bill!

[@pattysherwood7091]

This has been a very helpful video. Thank you! I need to move my beautiful raspberry patch. It is April. They have budded. I will be looking for old canes to prune out before I carefully move the good ones. And I’ll have to be cold hearted with some of those new shoots I think. You helped me think about how to sort things out. Actually, I think I’ll watch your video again. 💕❤️

[@GrantHendrick]

Thank you for your great videos!

[@patriciatinkey2677]

I would like to grow raspberries, but 2 previous attempts were unsucessful. Great info for my next try!

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Do give it another go Patricia....once you get them setup, they really take care of themselves!

[@kara12358]

Thank you 💟

[@megannippert9015]

I have a mixed summer and everbearing patch (my fault). I have labored over how to prune the patch. I guess the smart move is just to wait to late winter! Take out anything dead and remove flowered tops (?) if still living.

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Yes, or even spring. Take out the obvious dead canes.... Even that makes a huge difference.

[@ghostsmith3629]

Thanks!

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Hey, thanks so much Ghost! VERY appreciated!!!

[@veraw2121]

My everbearing raspberries are sprouting and I was waiting for your video to prune 🙃🥴

[@imanoiam]

謝謝！

[@michaelwas8549]

my son just bought a home out in the sticks and we noticed their is a jungle of rasberry plants along the back of the property. Wondering if we should trellace them all up or just cut them back to the ground. they are all bent over. TY!

[@myhobbies411]

Hello. If you do want more raspberries plans can you dig out the suckered and transplant them to another area? Will they produce fruit?

[@veraw2121]

I have everbearing raspberries in a small bed in a corner and the primocanes are already hanging over. Will they grow even taller? Or will they grow side shoots? I will have to think about how keeping them upright 😊

[@gdavis34]

Question--how do you tell suckers from first year plants? Or is there a difference?

[@mapofthesoultagme7143]

how to tell apart primocanes and suckers if some of the suckers grow from base of the existing plants?

[@michelemarble6799]

Do you trim back any height of your raspberries if they are over 5 feet tall?

[@sircorkysriley4904]

great job again. would this also apply to blackberries???

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Yes, I treat blackberries the same way

[@johnlorenzo1413]

Great video, I have a question about suckers, how would remove them if you wanted to transplant them to a new area?

[@patriciatinkey2677]

I'd like to know, too!

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Hey John, you can cut them and stick them in moist soil right away, root them in water containers, or root them in separate pots and plant them later. I root them in pots, make sure they are growing, then transplant. Later in the season, suckers are sometimes completely separate from the main plant and can just be dug up and moved anywhere, soil clump and all!

[@johnlorenzo1413]

@@TheRipeTomatoFarms Thank you ☺!

[@kennymonsters]

My raspberry plants had very thin, flimsy shoots all spring/summer but they grew tall. I tried keeping them pruned to 5-6ft in height, but being so flimsy and fast growing I kept finding the canes arching back towards the soil of neighboring pots where they formed secondary roots at the tops of the canes in the nearby pots. It's the weirdest thing I've every seen! I'm going to keep trying but it made me appreciate the simplicity of maintaining all my blueberry bushes.

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

That is interesting Kenny....were they crowded a bit, or well-spaced?

[@kennymonsters]

@@TheRipeTomatoFarms single plants in large containers everbearing variety. That's why I said its the weirdest thing. Never seen anything like it. I'm thinking I just got bad plants but idk

[@pattysherwood7091]

That sounds like black raspberries. They propagate by the tops of the canes, which arch over and reach the ground, to send out roots into the soil. They do not send out runners from the main roots of the cane so they must be allowed to bend down and touch the ground to grow roots and a new shoot from the tip of the cane. I have a patch of black raspberries from my grandfather’s farm so they must be an old variety!

[@kennymonsters]

That's prob why I've never got berries since I kept pruning those runners back thinking they were getting leggy and because of limited space. This yr I bought a 5 ft tall trellis so I can grow them up and over multiple times as needed. 4 plants total so we'll see this yr. Fingers crossed

[@pattysherwood7091]

@@kennymonsters now you know how to treat the canes. Protect those ends and watch that they root in the soil. I sometimes dig up the soil a little to help the roots get past the grass and root in soil. If they are in an inconvenient place ( often they are) you can steer the cane a little and aim them gently into a good spot, or just move them after they grow the new cane a while and establish their own roots. My plants were located in one area, and over the years they spread out in a circle beyond and now the center of my patch is empty. I will transplant some back into the center again this year. Good luck! Black raspberries are milder flavored, and black raspberry wine is very soothing if you get a cold.

[@cliffordpinnock2418]

How far apart do one plant resburry?.. I planted 2 plants in mid September of this year, ( my first planting), but space them out about 3 ft from apart from. each other.. cheers to you!..

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

I try to keep the clumps 18-24" apart. Once a patch gets going though, it fills right out. Look at images of "commercial raspberry harvested". Its shocking how full and packed the rows are.

[@michelemarble6799]

Aren’t the suckers at the bottom of the bush next year‘s Floricanes?

[@cap6741]

Should i remove the dead leafs on the shoot?

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

You can yes, it won't hurt the plant.

[@AnyKeyLady]

I am not sure which ones i have. They are currently fruiting again. Are these the floricanes then? I think i might wait until spring to see what is growing back. For some reason in my head i thought that you cut back the new cane from the year before. I have two pots. One i bought and over wintered and one that was a present from a bird this year. The one i bought didn't really seem to do much other than grow tall but the one from the bird is the one that has been fruiting, so bird poo is really lucky! lol

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Fruiting canes are normally Floricanes, but not always. Ever-bearing types will send up fruit on first year Primocanes near the end of summer.

[@AnyKeyLady]

@@TheRipeTomatoFarms Ok. I think. Haha. It's so confusing. Like you said in Spring i will know. Like with the strawberries, they only fruited once but this year fruited twice. Will they survive the cold if they are fruiting? Last night was cold and tonight looking like 4c before warming up to 10c on sat night. Still very wet here atm.

[@elizaC3024]

Elderberries next please.

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Great idea Elizabeth!

[@rlbgardener6465]

Hi Jeff, I have questions for you I’ve been growing some raspberries in mineral tubs for several years now and they’re getting pretty full. Now my question can I dig some of them out now while they’re dormant and transplant or should I wait until spring?

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Raspberry plants are highly forgiving... You can transplant now, or when they are actively growing. If you're doing any crown separation or divisions, they should be actively growing.

[@rlbgardener6465]

@@TheRipeTomatoFarms ok thanks, no crown separation just digging around the outer edges of the containers.

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

@@rlbgardener6465 should be fine

[@mapofthesoultagme7143]

How can I tell apart suckers growing from the base of exsiting plants from primocanes?🐢🐢🌈🌈👽👽🐣🐣👾👾🦄🦄

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Suckers turn into primocanes.... But early on they are much more spindly and thinner

[@suebar5177]

What I struggle with is how short to prune raspberries with exceptionally long canes. I've read waist height...which I do...and then they branch out. What are your thoughts/suggestions?

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

I do mine at 6 feet Sue. Any shorter and they just don't produce as well. That said, I normally don't even top the long ones.

[@suebar5177]

@@TheRipeTomatoFarms 😊

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

@@suebar5177 :-)

[@mapofthesoultagme7143]

Is May too late to prune raspberries? I live in Calgary

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

No...if you're just removing the dead last year's floricanes, it really doesn't matter how late you do it as far as the plant is concerned. Just makes it harder to sift through this year's growth the longer you wait...

[@markhoyt8643]

Can you tell me why when I pick they fall apart they been doing this for the last couple of years? Still getting a great crop tho

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Hey Mark, crumbly fruit is always a pollination issue.

[@markhoyt8643]

@@TheRipeTomatoFarms I just want to thank you for information.

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

@@markhoyt8643 no problem at all man!

[@KerriEverlasting]

I need one on what's wrong with my raspberry... it was doing so well. Now it looks almost dead and I don't know why. 😨

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

Any crazy changes like heat, or drought, or excess moisture?

[@gregre052]

Probably ly gone dormant.

[@TheRipeTomatoFarms]

@@gregre052 Maybe....although its spring I think were Kerri is now...

[@KerriEverlasting]

@@TheRipeTomatoFarms yes... extreme everything. Floods one week, frost out of season then drought and harsh wind. I don't know if it's too wet, too dry, too hot or has any number of diseases 🤦‍♀️😂🤷‍♀️

[@KerriEverlasting]

@@TheRipeTomatoFarms its only one cane, I don't want to lose it lol poor baby with plant killer for a mom