won't do anything for the slugs and snails but if you have certain diseases in the canes could infect the rest of your plants. Not likely to happen but one of the reasons most books suggest removal of berry and rose canes from the growing area. You can compost them and the heat could kill the organisms but I would use on a different crop and not your berries.

Thanks for that. You just saved me some extra work I don't need.

Rather than cutting the canes and then running them through the shredder/chipper I would simply mow the patch down with my mulch mower. That does put the old canes back in the Berry patch but I've not seen any problem with that.

Our raspberry canes get cut down in November, and they go right on the compost pile. I cut them to three feet long so they fit. I think they help air get into the pile. The finished compost goes onto the garden, or around the blueberry shrubs. Some of it goes back on the raspberry bed.

Well, the canes are headed to the compost pile. My mower would not handle the dense 6' canes. I am new at this and don't know what variety I planted. I planted 4 little canes from a school plant sale(50 cents each) in unimproved soil in May of 2008. This fall I harvested approx. 80lbs of beautiful red raspberries between mid September through November. I tranplanted and gave away 20 sprouts this past summer and they all produced fruit. They bear fruit the first year? So far it is a low effort high yield crop. I prune and mulch with compost now, then thin-out in the spring, and water well in the summer once a week. Any tips for sweeter berries?

I think you have an everbearing variety of raspberry, we have everbearing raspberries also, and they behave similar to yours. I see the sweetest fruit during the August drought. Lots of sun, and just enough, but not too much water, seem to be the key. Some advocate pruning the patch, to let more sunlight in, but I have a hard time pruning back canes that are full of flowers and green fruit, during the growing season.