Often people call expecting raspberries mid-summer. Our plants are fall bearing. This means that they fruit on the first year canes which is why it takes until the fall for them to grow, flower, fruit and ripen.

In early March, when the ground is still frozen we drive the tractor right over them, mowing down the old canes with the brush hog. We then rake up the canes and burn them for good sanitation in the patch.

Each spring we begin a monumental weeding program. Until the canes are at least a foot high we need to keep the weeds out and since we don't use any pre-emergent herbicide, this means a lot of hand work. We also use this early season to transplant raspberries that pop up in the aisles into areas of the rows that need more canes.