Having once planted raspberries, which produce several harvests per season, gardeners understand that such a gift of fate should not be refused. Since growing technology has its own characteristics, you need to know better what remontant raspberries are. Autumn care and preparation for winter are important stages for preserving bushes and as care for the future harvest. Today, the editors of the Agronom.guru portal have focused on reusable raspberries and are exploring the features of preparing shrubs for the winter period.
Variety "Caramel"
Preparing bushes for winter frosts
How well you prepare the bushes will affect the volume of raspberries and the plant’s resistance to certain diseases.
What applies to preparation activities:
- pruning weak and old stems;
- removing all leaves;
- proper mulching;
- shelter, which is made for the winter;
- application of various fertilizers.
Important!
The main points in preparing remontant raspberries for winter are the application of fertilizer with a significant amount of phosphorus, as well as potassium, high-quality pruning and insulation.
Let's talk about each stage in more detail.
Bending and tying
When using complete pruning of remontant raspberry bushes, gardeners omit the bending and tying stage, which is another argument in favor of growing these varieties. If partial pruning is used, then proceed as follows: the remaining shoots are tied with twine into a bundle of 5-7 pieces. This will protect the plant from damage under the load of snow and strong winds.
If the shrub grows in cold areas, the raspberries are tilted and insulated. Bundles of shoots are carefully bent to one side along the entire row. The bending height should not exceed 0.5 m. The bent bundles are fixed with wire or rope.
Correct autumn pruning of bushes
Caring for raspberries in the fall, preparing for winter - all this is very important. Even before the steady winter cold arrives, it is important to properly prune the bushes.
So, first, weak, diseased and dried out annual shoots are removed, as well as stems that are more than two years old. They have a dark brown tint.
If the bush grows significantly, you need to cut off the shoots from the side. They are light brown in color. This thinning makes raspberry bushes more resistant to severe frosts, and also improves the aesthetic appearance of the raspberry tree.
Thinning should be done so that about 10 stems remain per 1 square meter.
By the way, experienced gardeners recommend not only cutting off young shoots, but also not forgetting to remove leaves. Cold weather and rain can cause leaves to rot. As a result, they cover the flower buds, causing their damage.
As for the method of removing leaves after pruning, this procedure is performed in a bottom-up direction. Otherwise, you can simply damage your kidneys. For these purposes, it is also better to purchase thick mittens so as not to damage your hands with thorns. Grasp the shoot and move your hand up. As a result of this procedure, one-year-old healthy shoots will remain, which will not have leaves.
Branches cleared of leaves should be bent low and secured or tied up. This way you can protect the plant from severe frosts. In general, the height of such bushes should be less than 40-50 cm. If the stems peek out from under the cover of snowfall, then the buds simply may not withstand even moderate frosts.
Removed branches should be piled up and burned. This way you can eliminate possible pests. The soil is dug up near the bushes, after which fertilizers are applied. Performs shoot treatment using iron sulfate.
Pruning raspberries before the autumn cold is an essential part of caring for the bushes of this berry, thanks to which you can:
- get a good harvest of fragrant berries;
- the bushes will correspond to the sizes indicated in the description of this variety;
- raspberries will be able to survive the winter normally;
- plants will have high immunity to various diseases;
- give your plantings a beautiful appearance;
- free up space for picking berries and other manipulations with raspberries;
- destroy all kinds of pests, as well as prevent them from overwintering on the bushes;
- achieve good lighting for all raspberry bushes.
Mulching
Raspberries are not plants that like shaded areas of the ground. On the contrary, raspberries, including remontant ones, prefer sunny, open places. At the same time, the shrub is very sensitive to soil moisture. The soil should be loose and moist. If these conditions are met, raspberries will give a good harvest. The simplest way to maintain the required soil moisture is mulching.
Types of materials for covering the soil under bushes:
- Freshly cut grass.
- Dry grass (hay, straw).
- Sawdust (rotted for at least one year).
- Dry leaves (foliage of fruit trees is not recommended, the best options are maple, aspen, birch).
- Coniferous litter (dry fallen needles of spruce and pine).
Any of the listed types of mulch will help the plant not only retain moisture in the soil, but also keep the soil in a loose state. Mulch also attracts earthworms, whose activity increases the porous structure of the earth. The thickness of the mulch layer should be from 10 to 20 cm.
After watering, the soil should be mulched with fresh material, and the old mulch should first be collected and burned. In the fall, before spreading fertilizers, the ground around the bushes is covered with mowed grass. Then lay a layer of straw or sawdust. The height of the insulating shelter must be at least 20 cm for straw and 10 cm for sawdust.
Fertilizing raspberries for winter
As the fruiting season continues, gardeners usually apply good fertilizers several times, which should contain potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus.
When the autumn season arrives, it is important to fertilize raspberries with phosphorus and potassium fertilizers. The fact is that such an event will have a positive effect on increasing immunity and the plant’s resistance to frost.
Other events
High-quality care for raspberries is always important. Autumn work with these bushes is especially appreciated. Before this, we talked about how to properly trim the bushes and what to feed them with. Let's now look at other important points.
If winters in your region are characterized by very low air temperatures and low amounts of snow precipitation, then the raspberry fields need to be periodically sprinkled with snow yourself.
Mulch is also important. To do this, you need to pour straw on top of the plants. Its thickness should be approximately 10-20 cm. Thanks to this mulching, it is possible to create additional insulation for the bushes. In addition, they will be reliably protected from rodents.
Rotted sawdust, plant debris and foliage, rotted manure and peat can also be used as covering material.
You can also use synthetic covering materials such as spunboard and polyethylene. Ruberoid and polystyrene foam also work well.
If you decide to use film, be sure to make holes in it so that air can circulate well. Don't forget that the type of bush cover depends on the weather in your area. If this is the south, then insulating the bushes too much can lead to the plants rotting away.
It is important to remember that before covering the raspberries, the soil should be slightly loosened and the final fertilizing should be applied. If the soil is too dry, then it needs to be watered using a moderate amount of water. Let us repeat that it is especially important to carry out the mulching procedure in those areas that have little snow and harsh winters.
Before laying the mulching material, the so-called root collar should be lightly sprinkled with earth, and the soil near the bush itself should be leveled.
Another measure is snow retention. Snow is a complete insulator. Raspberry bushes should be covered with snow, the layer of which should be approximately 50-100 cm. You can also delay precipitation with wooden shields and stalks of corn and sunflowers, which are laid out in a checkerboard pattern. Before spring, the snow needs to be compacted and then sprinkled well with sawdust.
And now we invite you to learn about caring for remontant raspberries in the fall and about preparing for winter from this video:
And one more interesting video about the propagation of remontant raspberries, the principles of which can also be used in the autumn:
How to stop snow
If your raspberries grow in open areas that are very windy in winter, you need to take care to protect the snow cover. To do this, you need to use sheets of plywood or polycarbonate, which can be tied to existing trellises, first dug into the ground. These barriers are installed on the windward side where the greatest number of winds blow from. How to determine this? Just look at the website of the regional meteorological service and look at the wind rose in your area. Polycarbonate, by the way, is a more practical material, unlike plywood, because it is not afraid of frost, does not rot, and can be used for many seasons.
Residents of those regions where the winter has little snow or is so windy that it leaves the bushes without snow even with protection can be recommended to use additional covering material such as spunbond. This material covers bushes bent to the ground, being collected in several layers. First, the branches are tightly tied to the wire, and then covering material is spread on top and fixed in various ways. You can press it to the ground, you can dig it in at both ends, in general, whatever is more convenient. As an option, you can use curved polycarbonate sheets, which will serve as good protection for raspberry lashes.
Caring for remontant raspberries in the fall, preparing for winter in Siberia and the Urals
In the northern regions, raspberries should be cared for more carefully and properly prepared for winter. The fact is that this plant is not particularly resistant to frost.
Helpful information!
To prevent the stems from freezing, they need to be bent and covered. This way the branches will be well covered with snow, which can protect them from wind and frost.
You learned about caring for remontant raspberries in the fall and how to prepare the plant for winter, and now you can use the tips in practice.
Advantages of remontant varieties
These raspberry varieties compare favorably with traditional ones in many respects. In April, shoots of remontant specimens just begin to hatch, but fruiting lasts from August until frost. An outstanding achievement was the varieties of domestic breeder I.V. Kazakov, yielding up to 6 kg per bush.
It is convenient to form raspberries in well-lit areas
Remontant raspberry varieties have other advantages:
- Fast fruit production. The berries of classic varieties ripen only the next year after planting, that is, they are formed on two-year-old shoots. The remontant variety produces a harvest from the shoots of the first year of life.
- High yield. Regular raspberries bear fruit within 3-4 weeks. The early-ripening remontant shrub produces 2 harvests per year, and plants of late varieties bear fruit continuously from August to November.
- Easy care after fruiting. It is easier to prune remontant raspberries than classic ones. After the growing season, all stems can be removed at the root without sampling. Dead shoots and excess shoots are cut out of ordinary bushes, and productive stems are also shortened.
- Winter hardiness. Since remontant raspberries often overwinter without stems, they cannot die in frost, which makes them especially attractive to gardeners in cold regions. Traditional bushes need to be looked after before the onset of winter, i.e. bend the branches and insulate them with covering material.
- Rare damage by diseases and pests due to the complete removal of stems and later flowering and fruiting, relative to ordinary varieties. This feature allows you to grow berries without the use of chemicals.
Comparative characteristics - Among the new varieties of remontant raspberries, 2 groups are clearly defined: with restrained branching and with highly branching shoots. The latter received the name Rushbush. The raspberry tree branches intensively, the side shoots grow rapidly upward and do not droop. The berries are formed in the upper zone of the bush, along the periphery, which is convenient for picking.
