can i plant all rasberries in a 3x12 sfg ?

StIsadore 5/27/2010, 1:55 pm

I live in nw wy and wondered if it would work to plant the whole 3x12 sfg in rasberries? can i plant all rasberries in a 3x12 sfg ? 601593

Megan 5/27/2010, 4:04 pm

I have never grown raspberries in a SFG, but I can tell you that I grew up in a place where we had a raspberry patch that was a legacy from previous owners. Hard to estimate size considering I was so small at the time, but I would guess it was at LEAST 6 ft by 12 ft. (My memory tells me it was as big as a football field ;-) ) It had not been cared for well and went wild... so dense that we could only harvest the berries at the very edges.

For a 3 ft wide box you might get scratched up trying to reach into the middle unless you keep it carefully pruned. 2 foot wide might be a little easier to work with. I would also put something on the bottom of the box (hardware cloth?) so it doesn't run away and invade everything around it.

StIsadore 5/27/2010, 5:47 pm

Thanks. I don't know anything about rasberries. Pretty new at this whole gardening adventure. Plus I live at about 5000 feet and deal with late and early frost and the WIND!

Megan 5/27/2010, 5:52 pm

Any kind of berry is going to be a permanent planting, pretty much. Don't count on rotating it from place to place each year. I don't know about Wyoming's climate but the raspberry patch I remember was in southern New Hampshire. It survived sub-zero temperatures with no problem, though it was in-ground, not in raised beds. That is about all I've got for ya I'm afraid. Best wishes!

Retired Member 1 5/27/2010, 6:03 pm

I planted blackberry bushes in raised beds because my native soil is pure clay and rock -- no top soil to speak of. But I didn't try to do it in a SFG -- blackberries need to be planted 4-6' apart, so there was no sense in doing a SFG grid. I would imagine the same is true of raspberries. If you have poor soil, by all means do a raised bed to give the plants as much nutrients as possible. I also would recommend 2' instead of 3 -- the roots don't need more than that and the top will grow as it wants anyway.

Megan 5/27/2010, 6:10 pm

Belfry, our soil in NH wasn't all that great (very rocky) either, though a few centuries of farming did nice things to the main fields. My limited experience with cane berries is that they are pretty darned resilient. Blackberries are a weed in many places.

**WardinWake** 5/27/2010, 8:09 pm

StIsadore wrote:I live in nw wy and wondered if it would work to plant the whole 3x12 sfg in rasberries?

Howdy:

Raspberries and other bramble fruits will spread from the roots sometimes popping up at a distance from the mother plant. I had some that rooted through the bottom of the plastic pot they were in and those took over about a 10 foot length along side of the house. If I did not mow I expect that they would spread out into the yard.

As a side note, blackberries are difficult to grow from seed unless they are "scarified". Nature designed them to go through the digestive track of birds and to be spread as the bird popped some distance away from the bush. Scarfing can be done without following a flock of birds around all day by soaking the seeds in a week solution of household bleach or by taking a small nail file and carefully filing on the seed to get through the tough outer layer. The seeds are so small that the filing method is a real bear. A better way to propagate blackberries is to place a part of the growing vine/bush into a pot with the tip of the vine/bush sticking out of the top of the pot. Picture in your mind a U shape. Fill the pot with soil/Mel's Mix, keep moist and next year cut the newly formed plant from the mother plant. A nice root ball will have formed in the pot. I do not know if the same method can be done with raspberries, but, it would seem to me that it would work.

God Bless, Ward and Mary.

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