"Kim Bewick" wrote in message
...
Hi All
Carrying on from my first posting regarding my new allotment, I have now
discovered that I have a little bit more land than i first thought and
that
this strip of land is covered in raspberry canes. Does anyone know if it
is
possible to salvage these at all. They look like very dead sticks at the
moment about 2' in height, but not knowing anything about raspberries, i
don't know what to do next.
Kind Regards
Kim

They will look like dead sticks at this time of the year. If they are summer
fruiting then some will be dead canes that fruited last year. Others will
have small leaf buds and it is these canes from last year that will provide
this year's harvest.
You can safely remove the dead canes they will literally snap compared to
the fruiting canes which will be flexible- but even if you chop the lot down
they'll still make shoots for next year.
If they are autumn fruiting you can hack all the canes down as the fruit
will be on this years new growth.
Razzers are supposed to have a life of ten years - as they get older the
fruits get smaller and less tasty. But we found old canes on our plot and
they produce masses of small fruit each year. We use the fruit from these
for Pavlovas and summer puddings, and have new Glen Magana canes to eat
fresh from the cane with double cream..... Yum!!!!