Raspberries Chilcotin

Attributes

The tall canes of fruit mid season for around four weeks in December. In the right conditions, Raspberry 'Chilcotin' will produce a secondary crop around March. Keep your canes moist and fertilised to help them along.

Raspberries grow best in cool to cold climates and like a rich, well drained soil. Generous quantities of organic manure or complete fertiliser should be added to the soil before planting. Canes can be tied to a single wire trellis about 100-120 cm above the ground or otherwise grown and supported along a fence.

During the first season it is recommended that flowers be removed in order to build up strong plants for future crops.

In winter tip prune the one year old canes by cutting 10 cm from the tips. This encourages laterals to form in the spring which will later bear the coming crop.

When harvesting is completed, canes that have borne fruit (2 year old wood) should be cut off at ground level. The one year old wood (primo canes) should be tip pruned and are then left to provide the next season's crop. Autumn fruiting varieties can be treated as annuals and cut back to ground level in late autumn. New shoots that appear in spring should be thinned out to about 8-10 per clump. These will produce fruit the following autumn. These are best tied separately from the fruiting canes to make harvesting and pruning easier.

Water well during warmer months. Pests such as aphids, thrips and caterpillars can be controlled with a pyrethrum based insecticide. Should any fungal diseases affect the plants, spray with a suitable fungicide. When fruit is ripening watch for invading birds!

Raspberry 'Chilcotin' grows 1.5m+ tall and across.