A ripe red raspberry hanging on the cane among green leaves
How to grow

Raspberries

Takes a hard frost. A perennial for zones 3 to 8. Plant out up to 4 weeks before your last frost. First harvest 13 to 16 months from planting.

Photo: “Plump Raspberry on the Bush” by John Brighenti from Rockville, MD, United States, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).

  • Full sun6–8 hours or more
  • 18–36 in apartRows 10–12 ft
  • 13–16 monthsFrom planting out
  • pH 5.8–6.5Soil pH
  • 1–1½ in a weekEven watering
  • HardyTakes a hard frost
  • Zones 3–8Comes back each year

Your dates

Put in your ZIP code to see when to start, plant and harvest raspberries where you live, from your own frost dates.

Look up the frost dates for this ZIP code
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From seed to harvest

  1. PlantSet in the groundWeek 0
  2. EstablishRoots take holdWeek 1–4
  3. DormantRests over winterWeek 26–32
  4. FlowersFlowers openWeek 56–60
  5. Fruit setsSmall fruit formsWeek 58–62
  6. HarvestReady to pickWeek 60–68

How to plant and grow

  1. Choose a clean site

    Pick full sun and well-drained soil, or use raised beds. Stay away from wild brambles and from ground that grew tomatoes, potatoes or eggplant last year.

  2. Plant in early spring

    Set bare-root canes as soon as the soil can be worked. Potted plants can go in after frost danger passes.

  3. Space the rows

    Set red raspberries about 2 feet apart in a row. Black and purple types need more room. Leave about 10 feet between rows.

  4. Keep a narrow row

    Let new canes fill in, but keep the row no wider than about a foot so air moves and picking stays easy.

  5. Water during fruiting

    Give 1 to 1.5 inches of water a week from flowering through harvest.

  6. Prune each year

    On summer-bearing types, cut canes that fruited to the ground after harvest. Thin the rest in late winter to the strongest canes.

  7. Pick often

    Berries ripen over a couple of weeks per variety. Pick every day or two and chill fruit quickly to slow fruit flies.

Common problems

A male spotted wing drosophila fly with a dark spot on each wing
Photo: “Spotted-wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) male” by Martin Cooper from Ipswich, UK, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).

Spotted wing drosophilaPest

What you'll see: Ripe berries soften, collapse and leak soon after they ripen, with tiny white larvae inside.

Prevent

  • Pick often, as soon as fruit is ripe.
  • Remove and destroy fallen, damaged and overripe fruit.
  • Refrigerate fruit soon after picking.
  • After bloom, cover plants with very fine netting sealed at the bottom.

Organic options

  • Spinosad, or OMRI Listed pyrethrins (without piperonyl butoxide), from when fruit starts to color.

Conventional options

  • Malathion or carbaryl, if the crop is on the label.

Bee caution: Don't spray open flowers. Spray in the late evening, when bees aren't flying.

Japanese beetles clustered on rose leaves and flowers
Photo: “Japanese Beetles on Pasture Rose, Ottawa” by D. Gordon E. Robertson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped). The cropped version is shared under the same licence.

Japanese beetlesPest

What you'll see: Metallic green-and-bronze beetles eat leaves down to a lace of veins, feeding in groups on leaves, flowers and fruit.

Prevent

  • Do not use beetle traps; they draw in more beetles than they catch.
  • Check plants daily while beetles are flying.

Organic options

  • Knock beetles into soapy water in the early morning or evening.
  • Spinosad, neem oil, or OMRI Listed pyrethrins (without piperonyl butoxide) help somewhat.

Conventional options

  • Carbaryl, bifenthrin or zeta-cypermethrin, if the crop is on the label.

Bee caution: Don't spray open flowers. Spray in the late evening, when bees aren't flying.

A raspberry cane borer beetle, black with an orange thorax
Photo: “Oberea perspicillata P1410199a” by xpda, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped). The cropped version is shared under the same licence.

Raspberry cane borerPestSprays are rarely needed

What you'll see: Cane tips wilt and droop in early summer, with two rings of punctures a little way below the wilt.

Prevent

  • Check canes each week in early summer.
  • Prune wilted tips well below the lower ring of punctures, and destroy them; do not compost.
  • Look again the next spring and prune out any new wilted tips.

Organic options

  • Pruning out wilted tips is the control.

Conventional options

  • Usually not needed; pruning controls it.

Cane blightDiseaseSprays are rarely needed

What you'll see: Canes wilt and die in summer, often as fruit starts. Dark brown to purple patches spread from pruning cuts and wounds.

Prevent

  • Prune only while plants are dormant, and cut old canes off at the ground with no stubs.
  • Keep rows narrow, weeded and in a sunny, well-drained spot.
  • Avoid wounding canes, and feed plants so canes grow strong.

Organic options

  • Cut out and remove infected canes. It can take two seasons or more of pruning to get ahead of it.

Conventional options

  • Where it has been serious, a preventive fungicide labeled for raspberries can protect fresh cuts. Pruning and clean-up matter more.

Root rotDiseaseNo spray helps

What you'll see: Plants yellow, wilt and die back even though the soil is wet. Roots are brown, soft and few, and bean seedlings may rot at the soil line.

Prevent

  • Plant in well-drained soil; grow raspberries on beds raised about a foot.
  • Do not overwater.
  • Plant beans and peas in a new spot each year, and sow them only once the soil has warmed.
  • Start with healthy plants, and do not move soil from a sick bed to a healthy one.

Organic options

  • Remove and dispose of dying plants and clear crop debris after harvest.

Conventional options

  • None. Fungicides have not proven effective in home gardens; drainage is the fix.
A winter squash fruit pitted with sunken anthracnose spots
Photo: Scot Nelson from Honolulu, USA, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

AnthracnoseDisease

What you'll see: Sunken spots: tan to dark brown on cucumber and melon leaves and fruit, small purple-edged spots on raspberry canes. In wet weather the spots can ooze pink spore masses.

Prevent

  • Grow vine crops in a new bed each year and clear plant debris after harvest.
  • Water at the base, not overhead, so leaves stay dry.
  • Thin raspberry canes in winter for air flow and destroy the prunings.

Organic options

  • Remove spotted leaves, fruit and canes.
  • Copper fungicide, started when spots first appear in wet weather. Look for OMRI Listed products.

Conventional options

  • Chlorothalonil on vine crops, if the crop is on the label. It protects leaves best before the disease takes hold.

Bee caution: Don't spray open flowers. Spray in the late evening, when bees aren't flying.

Read and follow the product label: it is the law. It sets the rate, the crops it is for, and the days between spraying and picking. Products registered vary by state; for organic growing, look for products allowed under the USDA National Organic Program (OMRI Listed). We name active ingredients, not brands or rates.

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Sources

Planting dates and growing facts checked against these university extension and USDA pages:

Growth-stage drawings: TallyTill.

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