How to Trim Red Raspberries

Summer-Bearing Plants

• 1

  Remove all damaged and diseased canes in the spring. Use sharp, clean pruning shears or clippers and cut the canes back close to the ground. If a cane is healthy except for its tip, cut back the cane to healthy tissue.

• 2

  Cut out any remaining canes that are not at least 1/4 inch in diameter when measured 30 inches from the ground. Aim for a spacing between canes of about 6 inches. This will make it easier to pick the berries.

• 3

  Prune the fruiting canes at the end of summer, after you've harvested all the berries. Cut the canes back level with the ground. This will leave plenty of room for new canes to emerge next year. Leave any canes that didn't produce fruit, as these will bear fruit next year.

Fall-Bearing Plants

• 4

  Cut all canes back to ground level in the spring.

• 5

  Thin the canes in the summer if they become too crowded or overgrown. Maintain about 6 inches between canes.

• 6

  Leave the canes to rest over the winter until spring pruning.

For Two Crops from Fall-Bearing Plants

• 7

  Remove all but the strongest, healthiest canes in the spring. Prune the tips of these canes. This encourages side shoots to form for a summer crop.

• 8

  Remove any of the side shoots that bore fruit in the summer after you harvest the summer berries. Leave the remaining central canes.

• 9

  Remove the remaining fruiting canes after they bear fruit in the fall. Allowing the plants to produce two harvests this way gives you berries over a longer period of time, but you will not realize as many berries as you would with a single fall harvest.