Pruning raspberries

When your raspberry cultivars fruit doesn’t just determine when you buy double cream, it also decides how they should be pruned. Crucially, summer-fruiting raspberries carry fruit on canes grown the previous year, autumn-fruiting raspberries produce their fruit on canes grown this year, and this affects how you prune them. Autumn-fruiting raspberries are blissfully simple to prune, just cut back every cane to ground level in winter. In spring, new shoots will appear that flower and fruit from late summer into autumn. Summer-fruiting raspberries need a different approach. When canes have finished fruiting in summer, cut them out but leave the young green shoots that have grown (but not fruited) this year, these should be tied in ready to carry a crop next year. Tie in the best strong young stems every 10cm (4in), cutting out weaker shoots and any extras. The older stems are easy to spot, being more brown and woody. You can also move any suckers to fill obvious gaps.