divaqs's Blog

Raspberries - Terraced Rows
Jun 12, 2007 | 8:03 AM PST
Tags: raspberries , terraced gardening

My raspberries have berries in the early summer and again in the fall. The first wave of raspberries are ripening on my vines.

When I bought my home I was fortunate to have with it a few rows of established raspberries already growing on a hill in the backyard. The problem I was running into was that the rows of berries were hard to maintain and pick on the steeply sloping hill, and it was somewhat unsightly.

So, I terraced a different hill and moved the raspberries to it over the winter, when they are dormant.

 

Rather than wire to give support to the raspberry vines I used bamboo poles, since I feel they are a bit more decorative and natural looking. I position the vines as they grow so they press against the pole in a way that holds them in a more upright position. Now that I am growing my own bamboo, I am hoping to be able to make my own bamboo poles in later years for this, though since bamboo is long lasting and rot resistant, I doubt I will need to replace the poles for quite a few years.

On every other terraced level I turned it into a deep pathway made of pea gravel. The deep pea gravel helps a lot to keep weeds almost non-existent in the paths, and reduces the chances of weed seeds making it to the raspberry rows. It also makes access to the raspberries a whole lot easier than the steep slope I used to have to try to balance on while picking.

 

As you can see in this picture, young vines don’t quite reach high enough for me to position them against the bamboo poles. I could probably have a lower bamboo pole to position those against if I wanted, but haven’t really felt the need for it. The young spring vines are the ones that will be growing the berries in the fall, and by that time they will be able to be positioned against the poles.

One drawback to what I did is that my rows of raspberries are below some evergreen cedar trees, which tend to turn the soil under them acidic. Raspberries aren’t fond of acidic soil, so I have been top dressing the soil during the winter with some wood ash from my fireplace. This should counter the affect of the cedars.