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When I decided to grow raspberries & strawberries I chose 4 varieties of raspberries and 7 varieties of strawberries. Of the 4 rasps 1 was a total disaster 1 is pretty poor but fortunately 2 are excellent. One of which is Autumn Bliss but have forgotten what the other is. Similar story with the strawberries. Now had I been unlucky enough to choose only the poorer varieties in the first place I would be of the opinion I am unable to grow rasps & strawberries and given up. I guess this is the case with all fruit & veg varieties to a large extent.

Currently I am in the process of doing away with the poor rasps and increasing the better varieties.

Piccy of one of the better variety of rasps:

Looking great... I have a friend who's raspberry mad - she has about a dozen varieties; like you, she's pulling out the ones she doesn't like. And she always grows far too much for her own use, so I benefit from it!

Fantastic, they look delicious. Well done you having the patience to experiment like that. We have inherited several canes that are growing like mad, but we don't know the variety and the fruit hasn't done much yet as the canes are too young really. Big hopes for next summer, but in the meantime we've frozen pounds and pounds of strawbs, they've grown like topsy.

I have Golden Bliss (autumn rasps which are yellow) and whilst they fruit they have little taste so I wish I'd planted something else. Never mind I have two plants of Zeva which is a fantastic autumn fruiting variety. We've had plenty off the summer fruiting ones too but it is such a pain picking them having to get in under the bird netting and getting caught up in it all!

Could you name the varieties of rasps and strawbs that you have found to be poor? That would benefit those who are thinking of buying some to know which are good and which aren't.

Sorry cannot name the varieties I found to be poor. I started out with the right intentions making a plan of the garden listing all varieties of strawberries, gooseberries, red, white & black currants etc then lost it. I don't bother with netting on the rasps & strawberries I am quite happy for the bird to help themselves. Cheaper than peanuts at £30 a bag.

I agree totally.
I planted up 3 rows of different varieties 3 years ago.
I can't remember the variety names either, but one was an early, one mid season and an autumn type.
The autumn variety thrived and the other two just curled their toes up and died.

So I just have the one now, which is no problem as it fruits continuously from about now until December.

I should have said in the post above that the same applies to apples.

I planted an orchard 3 years ago at the same time as the raspberries.
I chose 10 trees of 9 varieties (I have 2 Bramleys) and most are doing well.
Those that are thriving are the 2 Bramleys, Early Victoria, Irish Peach, Worcester, Discovery and Newton Wonder.
The Winston is still making up it's mind, but the Blenheim Orange just hasn't done anything .. just sitting there sulking. I told it last autumn that if it didn't buck up it's ideas it would have to go, but it's ignored me, so it's coming out this winter but I haven't made up my mind what to replace it with yet.

Odsox wrote:I told it last autumn that if it didn't buck up it's ideas it would have to go, but it's ignored me, so it's coming out this winter but I haven't made up my mind what to replace it with yet.

I have told several pear trees that and it worked!!! It's didnt work on the Mirabelle plums though so they really are coming out although one conveniently fell over in high wind last year and saved us a lot of work!

You can always give it one last chance! Dig a trench 6ft all the way around about 1-2ft down back filling as you go and chop any roots you find.

If you have a look around on the net you should find out a bit more about it. They used to do it to trees in orchards, I think to shock them into fruiting.

Hi try this!
http://www.rhs.org.uk/Advice/profiles11 ... runing.asp

No, I don't think it would work with my errant apple tree.
It's not that it's not fruiting ... it's just not growing !
All the other trees have quadrupled in size in 3 years but this one is still about the same size as when I planted it. Chopping through roots I fear would make matters worse.

No, it's coming out ... who needs a Blenheim Orange anyway

Having just been looking, I found that it is very tricky to find info about good varieties of soft fruit - most of the sites out there are from nurseries and therefore everything is excellent, tasty, vigorous, etc. There are a few good resources but they seem scattered. I bet between everyone on this site, we could pull together a list of varieties and how good they are - I almost tried Golden Bliss this year but won't now I've seen MMM's post.