Garden Studios

There remains time to plant new canes in these final weeks of dormancy, so once you don’t have any raspberries that’s worth planting a row on your garden by early March.

Dig in some home-made compost to help drainage and add some general fertiliser if you plant them, or fish blood and bone in case you choose to be organic.

Work in fertiliser across the soil of raspberries already planted to present them a spring boost, and curb summer-fruiting raspberries to about six inches (15cm) above the head wire in their post and cord supporting frame while you’re organised enough to have one!

Of course, summer-fruiting raspberries will need to have been properly pruned in November, but now’s the time to prune autumn-fruiting raspberries. Cut the canes all the way down to the bottom then work in fertiliser.

Then water the canes if necessary, and add a mulch of home-made compost across the canes to maintain within the moisture and drip feed more nutrition into the soil over the following couple of months.

Now we just need some spring and early summer sunshine to trigger new growth and, hopefully, masses of delicious berries.