Primocane raspberry usually have tiny thorns my two and five year olds have no problem picking them. nourse farms and Indiana berry have good reputation and selection

some raspberry canes are biennial ... you can not cut them down every season ... if you want berries the next year ...

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/growth-stages-raspberry-plant-60706.html

my kids from the time they could walk... foraged the raspberries.. to the point i never even got any ... which didnt bother me.. because i do not like them ... and they never had a problem with the thorns ...

on the other hand.. i quit growing roses... because those thing are mean.. and will make you bleed ...

if you have never grown them... you might be making a mountain out of a molehill... this would be last variable i would use.. when picking a raspberry....

i used to grow heritage.. and they were sublime ... i also had a gold one ... which was the same .. but i dont recall the name ... it might have been fall gold

https://gardenerspath.com/plants/fruit/best-raspberry-varieties/

ken

ps: some rasp's are fall bearing.. you might want to see if there are any local orchards.. that you might visit... to see some in person ...

We have a thornless blackberry that is biennial but I don't know the variety. Every year the old canes produce then die, and new canes sprout. The wife pruned them back hard last summer to get em out of the way, without thinking, and it really cut into this year's harvest. You can tie them out of the way a bit if you need to, or just cut the tips, but leave plenty.

my kids from the time they could walk... foraged the raspberries

===>>> to be clear... i grew named garden cultivars ... NOT wild bramble.. some of which will shred you .. lol ... now those are the ones to stay away from ... aka.. bird planted ...

ken

I think the worst are wild black cap raspberries.... those long white thorny canes reach out and grab you! lol!

Appreciate all of the feedback ... did not see anything about trellising ... anybody using a trellis for their berries ?

Most varieties of thornless blackberries cannot be pruned to the ground every year; you need to let the current year's growth overwinter to provide a crop next year. There are some primocane (same-year fruiting) varieties available, but I don't know if they work in zone 5. Most people who like a tidy garden use a trellis for caneberries. There are many trellising methods available. How long would your berry row be?

Mr. Logician, all kinds of options for row length ... a country setting ... the spots I'm looking at are like 10 ft. long each. Do you have zone 5 thornless blackberry cultivar ideas ? Thanks.

Ten feet would accommodate one blackberry and that would be with a good deal of training and control. Maybe three raspberries.

I grown Joan J thornless primocane raspberries and I have been very happy with them - I planted three tiny starts in a 4x6 bed three years ago and they are now producing far more than I can eat! I also grow Arapaho and Prime Ark thornless blackberries, but I may eliminate them next year as they are far too large for the space I have, and the squirrels eat every berry on the plants before I can get to them (they leave the raspberries alone for some reason). I believe Joan J is hardy to zone 5 but the two blackberry varieties may not be.

There are many postings to fruit forums about blackberries and below-zone-6 and most of those growers have to resort to covering or burying the canes for overwintering. Erect thornless blackberry varieties do not lay down well for covering or mulch.

A 10-foot row can be trellised with just one stake or post at each end. I have various caneberry varieties planted only 2 feet apart in the rows, but that takes a lot of training and pruning.

Consider thornless Logan as one of your varieties, it is not so vigorous.

The bottom line for the home grower is how many berries can you use? I have to prune out lots of blackberries at the green or red stage to keep 30 row-feet under 50 pounds, and most of that gets pureed or juiced.

Ok good info ... I'm going to have to research and find varieties that can handle zone 5 ... not burying canes, it's too cheap to buy berries at Wegman's for that kind of aggravation, lol. Actually, a winery near buy does bury their vines for the winter ...

I stand corrected on the number of plants to a ten foot row. I was thinking in terms of my own climate where blackberries are semi evergreen and the canes grow very long. I agree on the 'how many berries can you use?' point. Also think about the time you have available to harvest. It's a slow business and can take hours. I spend longer picking than all the rest of the care put together.

Floral, I'm cramming 6 varieties in three 10-foot rows spaced 4 feet for a total 8x10-foot area. There are multiple plantings per variety. They end up being semi-evergreen here and some go over 20 feet. I can't prune until October otherwise a lot of new spindly growth occurs. This year I will likely remove 50-60% of the linear footage.

For those who have more room, space caneberry plantings 4+ feet in the row and rows 6+ feet apart.