Planting Raspberries: Where to Put Them and Why It Matters

I almost planted my first raspberry canes in the wrong spot. Like, really wrong. Partial shade against the north fence because it seemed out of the way and I had space there. My neighbor, who has been growing raspberries for fifteen years and has the forearms to prove it, leaned over the fence and just looked at me.

Raspberries want sun. Full sun. At least six hours, and more is better. In the Pacific Northwest where we spend most of April through June apologizing for our weather, you want every photon you can get. Shade means less fruit and more disease, and I’ve had enough of both already in my life.

Picking the Right Spot

Sun is the big one, but there are two more things that will make or break a raspberry bed. Drainage and airflow. Raspberries absolutely hate wet feet. We get a lot of rain here in Redmond and if your soil stays soggy after a storm, you’ll get root rot before you get a single berry. My yard is mostly clay, so I raised the bed a few inches. If yours is too, either do that or pick the highest point you’ve got.

Airflow matters more than most first-timers think. Good air circulation through the canes keeps fungal issues down, and in our wet springs that’s not a small thing. Don’t plant them right up against a wall or fence with no room to breathe on the other side.

Also worth thinking about: raspberries spread. They send up suckers and they will colonize ground if you let them. Planting near lawn is fine as long as you’re willing to mow down the escapees. Planting next to a vegetable bed you care about is asking for a turf war. You’ve been warned.

Spacing (Don’t Crowd Them, They’ll Crowd Themselves)

Standard spacing for summer-bearing raspberries is about 18 to 24 inches apart within the row, with rows at least 6 feet apart. That sounds like a lot of empty dirt in year one. It won’t feel that way in year three when the canes fill in and you’re trying to pick berries without getting stabbed from three directions at once.

I planted mine at 18 inches and honestly could have gone 24. The row is dense now in a way that makes picking an event. Not a bad event, but an event.

For a first planting, two or three canes is genuinely enough to start with. You’ll get more plants than you want from suckers within a couple seasons. The canes are cheap at a nursery in April, usually just a few dollars each. Starting small means less to manage while you figure out what you’re doing. Which, now that I think about it, is pretty good life advice in general.

What to Do at Planting Time

Bare root canes go in while they’re still dormant, which in zone 8b means late winter through early April. If you’re reading this in April you’re right on the edge of the window, so don’t wait around.

Dig a hole wide enough to spread the roots out without bending them back on themselves. Depth should put the crown right at soil level. Not buried deep. I planted my first batch too deep because I thought that was the careful thing to do. It was not the careful thing to do. They sulked for most of that first summer and produced basically nothing, which felt like a fair response honestly.

Mix some compost into your backfill. Not a ton, just enough to give them something to work with. I use homemade compost for this, which is free, because paying for compost is something I refuse to do on principle. Water them in well after planting and then leave them alone for a bit. They establish slowly and don’t need a lot of fussing in year one.

Support Now, Not Later

Put your support structure in at planting time. Not next fall. Not “when they get bigger.” Now. Two wooden posts and a couple of lines of galvanized wire stretched between them is all you need. Set the posts before the canes are established, because driving a post through raspberry roots after the fact is a great way to have a bad afternoon.

The horizontal wire method works well. One line about 3 feet high, one at about 5 feet. As the canes grow, you tie them to the wire to keep them upright and out of the aisle. Simple, cheap, and it actually works.

Summer vs. Fall Bearing

One quick note here because I wish someone had said this to me at the beginning. Summer-bearing raspberries fruit on second-year canes. Fall-bearing (also called everbearing) fruit on first-year canes at the tips. They’re managed differently and if you mix them up you’ll wonder why your pruning schedule isn’t working.

I grow both now. I started with just fall-bearing because the management is simpler: cut everything to the ground in late winter and walk away. Easy. The summer-bearing setup takes more attention but you get more berries total, and that’s what we’re really here for.

Anyway, get them in the ground. April in Redmond is the right time, the weather is being reasonable for once, and there’s really no reason to wait. A few years from now you’ll be handing bags of raspberries to neighbors and coworkers and anyone who makes eye contact long enough. That’s the goal. We’re just setting up the infrastructure today.

Photo by V U on Unsplash