Thanks for your 2 cents digit, and for the helpful thread link. I'm liking what I'm learning about Latham. Its said to have qualities I'm interested in. Excellent winter hardiness, good flavor, good for home use.

I do want to have raspberries, but I'm starting to have second thoughts about my idea for the location of these beds. The site is nice and sunny, but being right next to my veg garden I'm concerned about suckering. Wondering if it might be wise to find a spot that is pretty well separated from the vegetable garden. Hmmm, not many sunny spots left on the ol' property. I've read some advice in some recent articles I've search up, and some people have trouble with their raspberries spreading. They recommend putting them somewhere that can be mowed around. Sounds like a good way to keep them in check.

It probably is.

My staked raspberries are separated from the garden by a well-used 2' path. On the other side is the neighbor's fence. Beyond that just a couple of feet is her metal shed. I think we better keep this neighbor! She is just delighted that after a few short years, she has raspberry plants in her yard ...

On the garden side of the path, a sucker showed up last fall. I dug that bed out to about 10" this month and found the root was coming up from below that. It had thereby avoided the compacted soil in the path. I imagine that I will need to dig out this bed every year ...

Steve

I really like Boyne. My parents recommended the variety from the Canadian prairies. So far so great. I also planted Heritage to lengthen the season. Too soon to tell how that'll work out. Can't remember why I went with Heritage.

I've had Heritage for six years now, and it's doing well. TOO well, actually! I have to severely cut it back every spring, and bits of it still keep popping up in unexpected corners of the yard like tentacles from a B-Horror movie. (And to think I used to worry about keeping it alive. Hahahaha...)

But for all that, it's a great producer.

--L

My experience with heritage is the opposite as Laura's, though, probably 70-100% of that is operator error. I'll probably pull the last of it out this weekend...well, the last of what I can see, it's probably a perpetual member of my garden family from now until the end of days. It grows great, sends up new shoots and the old canes (if I don't cut them back) come back good every year. But, I personally don't get very many flowers and the fruits are pretty tiny. A better location (or better gardener) might give me better results haha.

How old is your plant, Zach? Mine didn't really take off until it was about 4 years in the ground. (It now has southern exposure in a drip-irrigated raised bed, up against an 8 foot fence on its north side) Also, I've been giving it Age Old organic liquid fertilizer doses regularly to encourage bloom set.

And yeah, it will most likely be in your yard until the End of Days. Lol!

--L

Ah, well, that makes sense then! Mine were in the ground for a season, then we moved and since I paid a good 10 or 15 dollars for them, I dug them up and brought them with me. They were in their new location for 2 years, I dug most of them up last year because of a change of plans in that locale. You caught me about 9 hours late with that four year thing, lol, I dug the rest of them up this morning! I probably wont be letting any new shoots survive when I see them either, once again, change of plans (and I don't have anywhere else to relocate them to).