How to prune raspberries

In order to correctly prune raspberries or blackberries or any of their many hybrids it is important to understand their basic growth habit as well as what you want to get from them. 

If you don’t understand their growth you will never get the full potential from them.  If you don’t know what you want from them you are wasting your time in pruning them at all.

Floricane blackberry will not fruit well if pruned like this

Established brambleberries grow from a crown, each year they put up new growth, this new growth is referred to as a primocane.  The primo part of this word means 'first' as they are first year growth.

After the growing season is over the primocane will sit over winter and not do a great deal that you can see, the following season this older growth is referred to as a floricane.  Floricanes were originally the only canes that flowered, but we have since bred some varieties that can flower on their primocanes.   Knowing about floricane and primocane is important so you can prune them properly.

Raspberries

Primocane vs Floricane
All brambleberries can be roughly divided into two artificially imposed and sometimes slightly overlapping groups.  One group can only flower and fruit on old growth, we call them floricane (or summer fruiting)  The other group can flower and fruit on new growth, we call them primocane (or autumn fruiting or everbearing).  It is important to which about them as the way each group can be pruned can be slightly different.

All brambleberries have the ability to flower and fruit on a floricane, or second year growth.   This is how most of the wild brambleberries work.  Most varieties of cultivated brambleberries will only ever flower and fruit on floricanes.  This means if you prune your plant to the ground each winter, or if animals get in and damage the canes, the plants will be nice and healthy but you will never get any fruit.

My golden raspberries are floricane flowering

Pruning Floricane Raspberries
Most people prune floricane varieties by leaving new growth and cutting out canes that have fruited the previous year. They also cut out the tip growth to encourage branching which means they produce more flowers.  It can be difficult to know which canes are which and there is extra time and care required to prune them.   Some people put tape or something around a cane that has fruited to show that it should be pruned out in winter, this takes time and effort.

Some canes die after fruiting, others will fruit again the following year.  Some people only prune in spring when the plants are breaking dormancy by removing any dead canes.  Again, it takes a little time and effort to achieve this.

One benefit of floricane varieties is that there are a lot of varieties to choose from, some do better in different climates and some fruit earlier or later than others.  Don’t ever buy an un-named variety, accept them if they are free, but don’t buy them.

Some brambleberries fruit on floricanes as mentioned above, but they also flower and fruit on first year growth, these varieties are referred to as primocane.  There are several ways to prune primocane varieties, there are benefits to each way.

Dormant raspberries, these are thornless primocane

How to prune Primocane raspberries to get one crop per year
The way that most people are encouraged to prune primocane varieties is each winter to cut it to the ground, this can be done quickly and easily if you run over the plant with the lawnmower.   The results are that the plant will throw up new growth in spring and fruit late summer/early autumn.

Many commercial producers prune in this way, it is fast, it is simple, and it is cost effective.  Different varieties fruit earlier or later so you can extend your harvest by planting a few named varieties.   Instead of the lawnmower you could carefully cut out each cane and use it as a cutting to grow more plants.   You have options depending on how much time and effort you have to spend on them.


How to prune Primocane raspberries for two crops per year
Another way to prune primocane varieties is to treat them as if they were floricanes.  Each year don’t cut them to the ground, instead leave that growth to flower and fruit next year.   Only remove dead canes, and possibly remove the tips of the floricanes.  Removing the tips encourages the plant to branch, thus producing more flowers and more fruit.  The plant still puts up new growth in spring, it still flowers and fruits on this new growth in autumn, but it will also produce an earlier crop on each of the floricanes.

Pruning like this gives you a second crop, an early crop from the floricanes and a late crop from the primocanes.  I have heard gardeners say that removing the floricanes helps the plant produce a larger crop on the primocanes, this seems logical enough, unfortunately every study I have seen on this tends to indicate this is not the case.

Brambleberries store a lot of energy in the roots, getting two crops each year does not appear to decrease the primocane crop in any way.

Thornless raspberries

Can you get a second crop from a floricane variety
I mentioned earlier that there is some overlap between floricane varieties and primocane varieties, this is where things get interesting.  I currently grow a thornless raspberry that is referred to as a floricane variety.  It usually only produces one large crop in summer on old growth.  Sometimes it will produce also produce a small autumn crop on each of the primocanes.  This second crop is not guaranteed, and is usually based on the weather, but it is still a primocane crop from a floricane variety.

Just like above, I prune them as if they are floricane, otherwise there is a chance that I will not get any crop from them that year.

There are a lot more floricane varieties than primocane varieties, this is simply because they are more prevalent in the wild and it took us a while to find good primocane varieties and breed from them.  I grow both primocane and floricane raspberry varieties, but I prune them both as if they were floricane and sometimes get two crops from both. 
 

Raspberry plants for sale in Australia
I grow several different varieties, some are thornless, some are primocane flowering, I grow black raspberries, I am one of the few people in Australia who sell a yellow fruiting golden raspberry.  I sometimes sell raspberry canes on my for sale page over winter when they are dormant.

Edible mushrooms for beginners

People often tell me how they tried to grow edible mushrooms from a kit and either failed or the yield was disappointingly low.  Other people tell me that growing edible mushrooms is extremely difficult and you have to do their expensive courses to be able to even have a chance to succeed.  Depending on the type of mushroom, and your climate, growing edible mushrooms can be pretty simple.

Some types of edible mushrooms are simple to grow, others are complex.  If you are a beginner I suggest starting with one of the simpler types.

I grew some oyster mushrooms on newspaper logs and some others just on damp cardboard.  I recorded the days from inoculation to harvest here and here.  It was remarkably simple and turned waste into food.  It was actually heaps of fun.  One thing I have noticed is that many beginners don't understand the words that people use when talking about mushrooms, so any advice they read tends not to make much sense.

Oyster Mushroom

Fungi are not plants and they are not animals, treating them like either may result in failure.  I have read many places say that fungi are plants without chlorophyll, this is incorrect.  Fungi are more similar to animals than they are to plants, even when growing them I think they tend to react more like animals.

When trying to understand the terms people use when describing fungi it is sometimes useful to compare them to plants or animals.  This is simply for comparison.  Like any analogy you reach a point where the comparison doesn't quite work.

In order to successfully cultivate edible mushrooms there are a few simple things and a few terms you need to understand.  Here are some useful terms that will enable you to understand what people are trying to explain. 

How to cold stratify seeds

Seeds from different species have different requirements before they will germinate, some are simple, others are rather complex.  All seeds need moisture to germinate.  All seeds have a preferred temperature range within which they will germinate, for some this temperature range is rather narrow while for others this range is very wide.

Some seeds require cold stratification in order to germinate, some will even need to be cold stratified several times.  Some need the seed coat damaged in some way, in nature this is usually achieved when it passes through the digestive system of an animal.  Some seeds need light in order to germinate, others need dark, and most don’t really care.  Some seeds, particularly tiny seeds such as orchids, require complex mycorrhizal interactions in order to germinate.  Some plants, particularly parasitic plants, need various chemical stimuli in order to germinate.

I have heard people say how they incorrectly cold stratify seeds and then have dreadful results, so thought I would write a post on how I cold stratify seeds.  This may not be the best method, but it has worked for me and has returned excellent results and allowed me to grow some things from seed that otherwise I wouldn't be able.

Strawberry and raspberry seeds germinate better after cold stratification

Frost in the vegetable garden

We have had some heavy frosts this winter.  I keep meaning to sneak out and take pictures.  Unfortunately I only remembered to take pictures on mornings when it wasn't overly cold.  The frost is still very pretty though.

Frost on the remains of spent plants

How to prevent thornless berries reverting to thorny

Thornlessness in brambleberries appears to be influenced by at least three different factors.  Scientists and plant breeders have understood these factors reasonably well for quite some time.  Each of them has different advantages and disadvantages.   But how do you keep a thornless berry thornless, and how do you prevent a brambleberry from reverting to being thorny?

First, let me tell you about my experience growing a "thornless youngberry", then let me explain the three different ways that brambleberries can be thornless, then I will explain what you do about each of the three types.

Thornless youngberry starting to ripen

Kombucha Continuous Brew

We have been keeping various ancient cultures for years.  We started with milk kefir, then went on to things such as water kefir and sour dough.  Some cultures we have kept going for years, others we have lost, and others we decided to stop doing for now due to various reasons.  One of the cultures we have at the moment that I really enjoy is kombucha.

Unfortunately the origin of kombucha has been lost to history.  Several romantic theories have been made about the origins of kombucha, none appear to be based on anything other than dramatic story telling, and these stories eventually merged to the one that is often told today.  The truth is that we know roughly where kombucha originated, we know vaguely when it started to become popular, but it doesn’t make one ounce of difference.  The drink tastes good, it is simple to make, and it reportedly has several health benefits.  Who really cares when or how it was discovered.

I thought I would write a blog post to share the down sides of continuous brew kombucha, and test some of the health claims.  I think you may be surprised by the results.

Continuous brew kombucha

Early this year a very generous person gave me their beautiful continuous brew kombucha set up.  This thing is amazing.  It is large enough to make decent amounts of kombucha, and other than drawing off liquid and filling it up when low the system pretty much takes care of itself.  I have no idea if continuous brew is as good as batch brewing, but it works well for us so I am happy with it.  There have been two down sides to continuous brewing kombucha so far.

Firstly, and unimportantly, my scoby is not as pretty as the ones I see on the internet.  On the internet they always look like a perfect neat pile of fluffy pancakes floating blissfully in clear tea.  My scoby looks more like a pile of pancakes that was quickly eaten and immediately puked up by a donkey.   I am sure I could remove the messier ones and make it look prettier for a short time if I wanted to, but it would soon get back to looking like this.   It does its job well, so it doesn’t matter what it looks like.

Secondly, the only important down side I have noticed is that the little tap gets clogged from time to time.  The tap had a little mesh filter behind it, I removed that filter and it has never clogged since.

 

Kombucha scoby, mine doesn't look as pretty as the ones I see on the internet!

There are many anecdotal reports about the health benefits of kombucha, these range from things that seem reasonable to utterly absurd exaggerations that only a fool would be taken in by and everything in between.  Some health benefits have been scientifically tested, while others have not.   Some of the more commonly reported health benefits include decreased blood pressure, evening out of blood sugars, improved digestion, weight loss, increase in general immunity, lowered levels of anxiety and depression, and improvement in overall health.

Some of the alleged health benefits would be lovely, while others would actually be bad for me.  Decreasing blood pressure would be dreadful for me as I already have low blood pressure.  It is possible that kombucha helps even out blood pressure, but the people who rave about it mostly have high blood pressure?  Or maybe it has no noticeable effect on blood pressure and this is one of the many false claims?  I don’t know, so I decided to just drink it and see how I went.

Nothing works immediately, if anything is actually going to actually make you healthier it is going to take time before you can notice the difference.   When you notice the difference straight away it is often not going to do you a great deal of good long term (such as in the case of pain killers or antibiotics) or it is a placebo.   For the past few months I have been drinking kombucha most days.

So how do I feel after drinking kombucha for around six months, and how does that compare to before I started to drink kombucha?

Kombucha - the lines let me know when to refill

Unfortunately I have to admit that I feel exactly the same as I did before I stared to drink kombucha.  That's disappointing and unexpected.
 
My digestion is no better or worse, my general immunity is no different than before, my blood pressure and blood sugars are the same as always, and my overall level of health has not been altered one bit.  I was not expecting that.

I would love for kombucha to be a cure all tonic that made me as fit and strong as I was ten years ago, but it is not.  This doesn’t matter, I plan to keep brewing and drinking kombucha simply because I like it.

I don’t know if kombucha ever improves people’s health, maybe it helps some people but not others.  Perhaps my health made no improvement as I was relatively healthy to begin with.   I have issues with my neck and back due to an injury, I have low blood pressure and I need to keep an eye on my blood sugars (I have almost cured myself of blood sugar issues), but I eat well and am not sick all that often.  I don’t eat a lot of processed food and I sometimes drink water kefir so my gut flora is probably well established and robust.

Maybe kombucha improves the overall health of people who are generally unhealthy, eat poorly, and have imbalances in their gut flora.   I will continue to brew and drink kombucha simply because I like the taste, any health benefits that I may be getting from it are just a bonus.

Kombucha taste good to me

I should put up a post with the recipe for how I make kombucha, partly to help others but partly in case I ever forget.  The recipe I use is really simple and takes very little time.   When I do write a post with the recipe I will try to remember to link to it from here.

I don’t currently sell kombucha starter scoby through my for sale page as I am concerned about how it is covered under food safety laws.   I know that it is virtually impossible to legally sell eggs at markets in Australia due to food safety laws, I assume kombucha is probably restricted in similar ways.

How to store water chestnuts over winter

Chinese water chestnuts (Eleocharis dulcis) are very simple to grow at home and are very productive.  For some reason people used to tell me how difficult they were to grow, but the hardest part was finding any for sale in Australia that were not in a can!

To grow water chestnuts you don’t need acreage, you don’t need a stream or a pond, and you certainly don’t need to live in the tropics.  Chinese water chestnuts can easily be grown in most of Australia if you have access to soil, water, and sunlight. I grow them and I sell them so you can also grow them.  I grow water chestnuts in a cheap bucket.

Organic home grown water chestnuts

Being perennial vegetables, you can plant once and harvest forever.   In order to do this you need to store some water chestnut corms over winter while they are not actively growing. Let me explain how I over winter water chestnut corms.