There are 2 methods for Pruning everbearing raspberries, one is simple, the other takes more time. This post will cover both methods of pruning ever-bearing raspberries and I will let you know my preferred method.
What are everbearing raspberries?
Brambles (blackberries and raspberries) generally are biennial plants, meaning the first year’s cane growth (primocanes) produce only leafy growth and the flower buds that will bloom the next year. In the second year, those canes (now called floricanes) produces the flowers and fruit. This is the case with traditional June-bearing raspberries.
But everbearing raspberries are different. The first year’s growth will actually produce a heavy crop in the fall and then with proper pruning, they can also produce a smaller crop the following summer. Hence the name everbearing, a row or patch (in my case) of raspberries when properly pruned will produce an early summer crop (June/July) and then a later fall crop (August/September/October). The early summer crop will always be much smaller but you will usually have a continuous harvest from late June to the first hard frost.
There are two methods for pruning everbearing raspberries. The first is more difficult and will produce 2 crops. The second is easy but only produces a fall crop each year (although this is by far the larger crop). I will describe each method below.
When should you be pruning everbearing raspberries?
My preferred time for pruning everbearing raspberries is in the spring, just as the new growth is emerging from the ground. This has the advantage of allowing you to see where new canes are going to be growing this year and allow you to thin entire plants when necessary I also like the spring because I always seem to have more time in the spring to get the pruning done. I’m so rushed in the fall that I never have time to get to it. I also think it is easier to prune the canes when all the leaves are off. But if you prefer, there is no reason you can’t prune in the late fall after the leaves have fallen off the canes. That is especially true of method #2.
One warning before you begin. Raspberries are thorny, sticky plants. When pruning ever-bearing raspberries you should wear heavy gloves, long sleeves, and eye protection! Without it, you will be pulling thorns and healing scratches for weeks afterward!
Pruning Everbearing Raspberries for 2 crops
The first year your raspberry patch is fully established you will notice that fruit production always begins at the tip of the cane and works it’s way down the cane towards the base. Once a cane has produced fruit on the end of the cane there will be no more production on that part of the cane, in fact, it will often die off.
So when pruning for 2 crops you remove the portion of the cane that has already produced fruit the prior year.
This can be a tedious process as you will need to prune the ends off of nearly every cane in the patch. You know you have pruned to the right spot when you can see a bit of green at the end of the cane where you cut it, like the picture above.
If when you prune the cane the cut end appears dry and dead, then you can cut a little further down the cane until you find green.
These pruned canes will now continue to produce down the cane in early summer. Once the cane has finished producing it will die back. The cane can then be cut down to just above the ground level, or you can wait and cut out those dead canes next spring. To help them determine what canes to remove the following spring many gardeners mark the floricanes by tying a piece of yarn on the cane when doing the spring pruning (or you could mark with a bit of paint).
You can see that most of the potential fruit in a cane is on the long end of the cane that bore last year. So this years crop (the early summer crop) will be small! For this reason, many growers decide that method #1 is too much work for too little reward.
Pruning Everbearing Raspberries for 1 fall crop
If you are like me then you may think that method #1 is a whole bunch of work!! The first year we grew ever-bearing raspberries I used method #1 and then to be honest with you I got tired of it!
The far simpler method for Pruning everbearing raspberries is to simply forget about the early summer crop and prune for one larger fall crop.
This is accomplished, also in the spring, by simply cutting all of your patches first-year growth down to the ground. My patch is not overly large so I just use hand pruners and cut the canes within an inch of the ground in late March. You could also use a pair of sharp hedge clippers to “munch” your way through the patch. The new canes grow up from the roots of the plants and produce an abundant crop in the late summer and fall. I even know a few people that simply prune their patch by running all of the canes over with a lawnmower!!! I really don’t recommend this method. It can damage the base of the plants and the rough cut from the mower allows more room for pests to enter. BUT if you really are that pressed for time the mower method will work.
Along with the simplicity and time savings of method #2, there is another added benefit to the fall crop method. Because you have removed all of last years plants there is less competition for resources in your patch. This makes for stronger, healthier plants that then go on to produce an even heavier crop of fruit in the fall!
Here is a list of some of the many available everbearing raspberries. This list doesn’t even come close to listing all the different everbearing varieties but will give you a place to get started.
Heritage, Ruby, Redwing, Summit, Amity, Canby and Carolines
WARNING: Please keep in mind that either of these methods is meant ONLY FOR EVERBEARING RASPBERRY VARIETIES. Traditional June-bearing raspberries and nearly all varieties of Blackberries are pruned much differently!! Make sure you have ever-bearing varieties before using these pruning methods. If you try method #2 on June-bearing raspberries or any blackberries you will NEVER get any fruit!!
Homemade Taco Bowl Salad
Got a question for you. What do you do with your pruned canes? Can they be just left on the ground? Every year I place cardboard in between my rows with hay/straw on top. This keeps weeds down and helps the raspberries stay in line. (of course there are always stragglers who want to grow where I don’t want them.) Can I just lay my cut canes down and cover them with the cardboard mulch? Or am I better off putting them in the burn pile? I do give some of them to my bunnies as a treat.)
My biggest worry with that idea would be pests and diseases. Dead raspberry canes are a great place for pests to hang out and if you have any types of diseases in the canes that could be transmitted via soil that could also be a problem. But if you don’t feel like either of those are an issue you could give it a try. It is going to take several seasons for those canes to break down, so they will be with you for a while. Personally I just dispose of the canes.
I have used this method with great success for both summer and fall berries.
My question is that I have one new bed that grew plants(very leafy) but no fruit.
Do I cut off the leafy tips for a summer crop or just let them be?
If it didn’t bear any fruit this year then I would just let them be. New patches are a bit tricky but it should settle in nicely after a year or two.
The summer crop is smaller and less abundant than the fall crop, but those first berries provide such joy that I willingly spend the extra time pruning for 2 crops. Besides, I have had years where the fall crop fails due to weather. And, Poppo always pruned for 2 crops and these berries came from his patch : )
My berries are producing nothing this year. Same as last year. Maybe a cup of berries. I am always careful to prune them right. Maybe I need to tear them out and start over.
What type of berries are they? Are they everbearing or single crop? Because how you prune the different types really matters.
I pruned for 2 crops but we have had a couple of frosts already so I’m going to lose a large portion of my fall crop….half the plants already produced a pretty good crop but the rest of the plants are loaded with green berries at their tips and will never ripen. Should I just plan on one crop so the fall crop will come in early? I’m in zone 6.
The first crop will have little effect on the second. It sounds like your season might just be a little short for the fall crop. I guess there could be some argument that the canes from the summer crop could be shading the fall crop and slowing its progress. But I’m not sure it will really make a difference. But there is one way to find out! Test it out this year. Just prune for a fall crop only this year and see how it does next year. If you are still losing a big portion of the fall crop to frost next year then go back to a 2 crop pruning system.
I am having the same problem. This is the second year I’ve had raspberries. They blossomed so late, and while I got a few raspberries (just 2 cups’s worth), I had many more berries that didn’t ripen before frost. This happened last year, too, the first year I planted them. I thought things would be better this year, but they aren’t. Did I plant the wrong variety? The summer crop was tiny this year, but I wasn’t expecting much.
I replanted my raspberry bed 3 or 4 years ago. Production has ramped up since then, and this year was the first year I felt I had a good amount of berries. It may take longer for your bed to fully establish itself.
My berries do keep ripening until they freeze – often through several frosts. I don’t know what variety they are – they have been handed down through the family from my great-grandfather’s patch.
April, That is very cool!! I would love to have a variety with a history like that!!
I also have plants rhat produce until a freeze, a long as there is berries on they will grow and ripen. I always plant hertiage
Summer crops are always small, even when the patch is established it won’t be as big. We always end up losing berries to frost, but we still get a lot of berries. Our first frost usually arrives around October 1st. There are two things you should look at. 1. Yes, you may have chosen the wrong variety. Start asking around in your area. Call your local extension agency or look for a local master gardener group. Talk with them about what varieties they are planting and having success with and maybe quickly switch to one of those. 2. It may be that in your area it is just not possible to grow everbearing varieties. So maybe look for a one crop variety that bears mid to late summer before the frosts come. But I would really suggest that you dig in and find some local experts to help. I can give general advice but it is always good to have a local expert. There is going to be a fix for you. Most everyone can grow raspberries. I have family that has a huge and VERY productive patch and they live in a Zone 3 mountain valley with a very short season. So it is possible.
It is summer and the first crop of berries seem to have finished. Did not do a good job of pruning this spring so have a thick brush of berry plants. May I cut off the dead ends and prune out the new young stuff that is growing without a lot of damage to the raspberry bed. I have a lot of the old dead type canes that actually produced quite a few berries.
You can remove the dead canes that have finished producing. I would leave the young stuff as that is what will be producing this fall or your first crop next year. I’m pretty careful with pruning this time of year. If possible wait until the plants go dormant this fall or winter.
Hello,
I am late to this post, as we just put in a few canes this spring. The gardener said they are ever-bearing. We are in the middle of a very small crop of our first year berries. It is delightful :). We even have a new cane starting to sprout up. However, I wonder if I need to prune for the fall crop – should I cut off the “spent growth” in preparation for fall? I understand what to do when they go dormant, but its this in-between time in our first year that is a bit confusing. Thank you in advance to anyone who is able to give some direction.
First year I wouldn’t worry about it. You want those canes to stay as long as you can, they will feed the roots and help establish the plants. Prune those canes once the plant goes dormant.
I have Rubus ideaeus raspberries but am not sure if they’re everbearing. The tag that came with it says it may produce a crop in the fall. It says to cut back dead canes to 3″ from the ground in early spring. I’d like to get 2 crops if possible but am not sure of how to prune. Any advice would be appreciated!
Well, that sounds like an everbearing crop. Ours can be cut back in the spring and we would get just one fall crop. Whether you can get a second crop depends a lot on where you live. The key is whether or not the plant finishes producing all the way down the cane. If you are in a warmer zone then you may not get a second crop from those 2 year old canes.
My raspberries only have new growth on the ground level and none on last years canes. I guess I should just cut all the dead canes off? I’m used to summer bearing raspberries and was surprised to find no growth on last years canes at all.
Sounds like to me that you have traditional raspberries there not overbearing. So yes just cut off those dead canes.
If I am reading this right in the spring I can cut back all of the everbearing raspberries to 1 in and have berries in the fall? My friend says she has raspberries that she just cuts all canes back in the spring ( not worrying about new or old growth) and has berries each year. Is this what you are doing with the ever eating raspberries?
Thank you
With Everbearing you have the option of doing it either way. You can trim them back to where last year’s production stopped and get an early summer crop, OR you can cut them back to the ground and only harvest from the new growth in the fall. Just be 100% sure that you have everbearing raspberries, because if you cut them back and they are not everbearing then you will never get fruit.
Where I am the rabbits will do the work for method 2 over winter.
First time trying ever-bearing. Thanks for the great info!
Really? Even the heavy wood stems? Boy am I glad we don’t have rabbits in our area.
Actually it was the primocane they dined out on last winter (I had trimmed down the dead ones). I think they are a winter last resort for them. If I go with method two for the everbearers than I won’t have to worry about caging them.
New raspberry grower here, so, just want to clear up something wrt everbearing and pruning option 2. If I understand the process correctly, you will cut down all the 1st year growth in the spring – which is actually the beginning of year #2 for those canes. So, it took an entire growing season for those canes to grow and develop buds, but, not grow berries. Now, in year two, those canes have to start from the ground and grow, develop buds, and bloom into berries – AND you will get a bigger harvest? It seems counterintuitive, but, I would rather have a larger fall crop than two small crops spread over two seasons.
I just want to make sure I am getting this down right, because it does seem counterintuitive – but, I’m a newbie and you have years of experience.
Looking forward to your reply.
Dave, remember that with everbearing varieties the biggest crops will be on year 1 of those canes. Canes that start growing in the spring will start producing around the first of August and will produce progressively down the cane until frost. If you leave that cane it will pick up where it left off and continue to produce in the early summer of the next year, but it will be a SMALLER harvest. A lot of people just decide that a small harvest isn’t worth the work and cut the plants down relying only on the first year’s late summer/fall harvest.
Thank you very much for the reply. I do appreciate your effort to provide a response to my inquiry.
I am a VERY new raspberry grower, so, really don’t have much more knowledge than what I can glean from Youtube and the internet. I had heard multiple times that chopping the plants down and just getting the 1st year growth would result in a larger overall harvest than getting two seasons worth of berries. That is what seemed so counterintuitive to me.
I have a small batch growing, so, could run an experiment by doing both methods of pruning and see which pruning method brings the greatest overall harvest.
Yes, but…. that is very much weather dependent. 4 out of 5 years I get a fair to great early harvest off last year’s canes. 2 out of 5 years I get a good to great fall harvest off the new canes. Maybe 1 out of 5 years I get a good to great harvest both early and late.
This year it looks like the August harvest is a bust, maybe 2 handfuls. It’s been hot and dry and I couldn’t water them. Early harvest was good.
I just can’t pass up those early berries, and in my patch they are more reliable.
I have a two year old patch of everbearing raspberries. I agree with all you said. Two things though: #1 my plants grow to 12 – 16′ long draped all over my trellis, so it seems I should adapt your instructions somewhat as the fall bearing section is maybe 1-2′ long leaving at least 12′ cane after pruning off the fruited tip. Seems the canes that will bear next years summer berries will be too long. 2- I’d like to aim for a mix of summer and fall canes by cutting half of the canes off at the ground for next fall’s crop and pruning the other half so they produce summer berries the following summer. Appreciate any advice you have. It’s spring now and I haven’t done any pruning yet. Thanks
The first year canes of my everbearing raspberries are growing incredibly long – some are close to 10 feet high, with no sign of fruiting. I’m in central California. I feel like I should cut off the tops to shorten them, but if they are supposed to bear fruit on their tips, I might not get a fall crop, is that right?
Are you sure they are everbearing? You can trim them if they are too long and they will still bear.