Raspberry Trellis
All About Building a Raspberry Trellis
When luscious berries are plentiful and branches are bowing to the ground, your garden needs a raspberry trellis. Simple to build and delivering multiple benefits, this structure will help your fruit harvest last longer.
Often fans of raspberries plant an ever-bearing variety. Different than the usual summer plant that bears fruit for about four weeks, the ever-bearing raspberry provides food from July until frost. This abundance leaves the branches drooping with the weight.
Keep your raspberry bushes off of the ground to reduce pests snacking and to improve light and air filtration. If you use chemicals for pesticide or fertilizer, keeping the raspberries upright will help with the distribution of any sprays applied as well. Also, plants supported by a raspberry trellis are easier to pick from and are more visually attractive.
A simple raspberry trellis is basically a wire fence running beside the bush. Branches will lean on the fence as they grow. The wires work to hold up branches and present fruit at comfortable levels for viewing and picking.
Start with a cedar post at either end of your line of bushes. Cedar is the best choice as it naturally rot resistant and should last years in the ground without leeching any harmful treatment chemicals into your patch.
Sink the post into the ground well, reinforcing it with concrete or a gravel backfill. If frost is an issue, look to get the post hole at least 42 – 48” deep to go below the frost line. Otherwise you may find your post has heaved next spring and you’ll have to build your trellis all over again. The post length will be determined by the depth of your hole, but the height above the ground should be between 5 and 6 feet.
Attach a short cedar post (4x4) or thinner lumber (2x4) across the sunken post to form a “T”. It should attach at around a 4 foot height and have a length of 42”. You can use nails or screws for this process.
Next run some wires across the space between the two crossbars. Depending on the height of your bushes, you may want to install another crossbar closer to the bottom and string a second wire across.
Attach the wires with heavy staples or simply tie them well. The wires need to be able to support the weight of your full raspberry bush.
It’s a good idea to have the raspberry trellis in place before the bushes get too big. Better to have the bush grow into the structure than try to build around it later. Also remember that raspberries root underground, so you will have weeding to do every year. Even weeding is easier with a raspberry trellis installed. By keeping the bushes upright, you nearly eliminate sagging and having to push prickly branches out of the way to attack weeds.
Raspberry trellises can also be installed against a wall and the bushes loosely tied onto it. Iron, mesh or wood fence works fine for this application and the fence can be installed between two regular posts sunk in the same way as the other trellis option. This method makes it much more difficult to pick berries for the one side, as well as weed over there. But if your raspberry bushes are planted along a wall, it may be your only option.
The health benefits and delicious taste of raspberries make them a homeowner’s favorite to plant. A well built raspberry trellis will assist in the delivery of that fruit and make care and upkeep of it easier. Be good to your garden and install a raspberry trellis this year.