Raspberry

Raspberry plants spread by suckers. This means raspberries like to grow and will spread out far and wide if you let them. But large, unpruned raspberry bushes won’t yield more berries and can lead to problems and even early die out of the raspberry bushes. Pruning raspberry plants does more than just keep your plants under control. Raspberries can be prone to disease and pruning inhibits the spread of disease throughout your patch.
To insure that light and air can get inside the plants and to facilitate pruning, keep your raspberry plants controlled in a row. Keep the base of the bushes within a 12 – 18 inch footprint by pruning out any suckers that poke up outside the 12 -18 inch footprint. Don’t worry, the bushes will be much larger on top.
There are 2 bearing categories for raspberry plants:
Summer Bearing (floricane) Raspberries will provide 1 large harvest, usually in late summer or early fall. Summer bearing raspberries bear fruit on 2 year old canes, the canes that sprouted last season. Summer bearing raspberries can be further categorized as early season, mid-season and late season. The harvest period lasts about 4 -5 weeks.
Everbearing (primocane) Raspberries aren’t really everbearing, but they do generally have 2 harvests per season; one in mid-late summer and one in the fall. They fall crop will probably be a bit lighter and is on 1 year old canes of the current season. Many fall bearing raspberries bear so late in the fall that they are not practical for gardeners in short season climates.