How to prune raspberries in spring to ensure a good harvest

Let's learn how to prune raspberries in the spring to ensure a good harvest. Pruning, both in the fall and especially in the spring, is crucial for raspberry bushes. It ensures proper clearing of debris and dead, useless branches, allowing for adequate wind and sun. If done correctly, your raspberries will blossom into large, ripe, fragrant berries, a joy for you and your family.
See also: DIY gardening unlike anyone else, interesting ideas.

Raspberry pruning involves cutting back branches to the living shoots, clearing away dried debris, and removing spent fruiting branches to make way for new ones that will bear fruit. In the fall, after the raspberries have finished fruiting and aren't expected to produce more this year, the raspberry patch needs to be tidied up, removing unnecessary branches and dead wood, clearing the patch, and preventing pests, which hibernate in the raspberry patch and then reappear in the spring, consuming your plants from all sides.

Spring pruning will significantly improve the yield and enhance the raspberry patch after winter. Branches often freeze in winter, so carefully trim blackened branches back to the living bud using sharp pruning shears. Branches should not exceed 50 cm in height. It's best to begin pruning raspberries in the spring, after the snow melts, around March or April (depending on the region). Let's take a closer look at the pruning process from fall to spring.

So, in the fall:

— we remove shoots that have borne fruit
-then comes sanitary pruning
— we thin out one-year-old shoots
— We burn all the cut parts, because it is in them that all sorts of pests settle down for the winter, so that they can become active in the spring.

In the spring:

We cut off the tops by 10-12-15 cm, which will make it possible to get a larger harvest.
Now we'll tell you about a trick that will help you enjoy raspberries all summer long, extending the fruiting period. Prune your raspberries in the spring to different heights. Divide your raspberry patch into three sections: cut the first section to 15 cm, the second section almost to half, and the third section to the ground, leaving about 10-15 cm. This way, your raspberries will begin bearing fruit as usual, but spread out over a much longer period, allowing you to enjoy fresh, flavorful berries all summer long.

Advice: If you want to get berries earlier, cover the raspberry patch with black film in the spring; your raspberries will appear a couple of weeks earlier.

See also: planting strawberries under black covering material.

Pruning remontant raspberries

This variety of raspberry is good because it can produce a second crop in August, and it also produces fruit the first year after replanting. It's recommended to cut back everbearing raspberries completely to the stumps after the second fruiting period. This way, the raspberry bush will overwinter beautifully under the snow and be ready to renew its life by spring. In the spring, when the raspberry bushes have grown, you need to prune them again, removing weak and frail thin shoots. These will not produce a harvest anyway, but will only choke the raspberry bushes, creating useless thickets that will also cause harm by shading the good vines and depriving them of proper air circulation.