Preparation of raspberries for winter does not begin in autumn, but in the summer. In the last week of August, you need to heavily feed raspberries with potassium and phosphorus fertilizers, which will prepare the root system of plants for the winter and the future vegetation period. The last feeding is done before the very frost. What other works are waiting for us during the autumn raspberry preparation for winter - we find out below.
Preparation of raspberry bushes for winter
Raspberry pruning can be started after the last harvest, when the active growing season ends. You need to trim all the shoots that were harvested this year. This will save the plant from unnecessary expenditure of energy, directing them to lay the future harvest on stubby branches. Also, from the summer weed, we remove all weak and thin shoots, leaving only the most powerful and ripened.
Raspberry shelter for the winter begins with its garter and mulching. To retain moisture at the roots of raspberries, they need to be kept covered all year round. Mulching material can serve as peat, straw, prelaya foliage. Coniferous sawdust and the needles themselves are not suitable for raspberries, because it does not like acidic environment.
Autumn mulching is an extremely important point, because during sudden frosts in the absence of snow cover, only this can save raspberries from freezing. The optimal layer of mulch is from 5 to 10 cm. A smaller layer will not protect against cold, but a larger one will provoke precipitation, purulent and fungal diseases.
Before mulching it is necessary to water the soil well, so that the plant does not go away in winter with a dry root system.
How to tie a raspberry for the winter?
When the process of leaf falloff ends, the time of bending and tying raspberry whips comes. To do this, you can use a simple design in the form of a few dug in the ground wooden or metal posts between which the wire is stretched.
For winter tying, the wire must pass at a height of 20 cm from the ground. So the branches of raspberries will quickly go under the snow and do not have time to freeze. To tie it is necessary in an arc-like manner, tying with nylon threads or strong ribbons.
It is important to bend the raspberries in time, while its branches are still flexible enough. If you tighten with this, they become dirty and become brittle, so that you most likely will damage them during the styling process.
Raspberry shelter for the winter
Of all the questions regarding how to treat raspberries for the winter, only the question with an additional cover remains. In general, the need for additional protection of bushes is relevant only if the winters in your region are not sufficiently snowy. And if the layer of snow is sufficient, then the mulch and snow cover will be enough. As a last resort, you can always add snow to the bushes if its layer appears to be insufficient for you.
If you live in a place where there is little snow in winter, and winters are accompanied by frosts and dank winds, it is better to build around the shelter.
Cover better with non-woven materials such as spandbond or lutrasil. They let in air and allow the raspberry to "breathe", excluding damping.
When you bend the branches to the ground and fasten them to the wire, you need to put several layers of covering material on top and fix it. You can press it or prikopat from two sides.
Another option for additional protection of raspberry bushes from winds and snowless winter is the construction of a structure from sheets of bent honeycomb polycarbonate. They are laid on top of the curved raspberries of the type of arc-shaped shelter.
In spring, all the shelters are important in time to remove and tie the raspberries to the trellis. The cover should be removed in stages: first remove the covering material, then lift the branches up to the upper trellis. It is best to do this until mid-April.