Heritage Raspberries

My handsome nephew was raised on raspberries. Now he has a new home and nothing in the yard. I am beginning to send his wife some perennials, but he wants raspberries. Can they be planted now in Vermont? The weather is supposed to be still mild there for awhile........

You might want to check out the Stark Bros. website - they have great culture info for all sorts of fruit based on zone. I know that some fruits do best with fall planting; others with spring - & don't know which is best for raspberries.

www.starkbros.com

If the answer is yes, let me know. I wanted to get some in the spring, but fall might be better... ~ Suzi :)

I checked with the NC State website and it definitely says raspberries can be planted in the fall. The bed has to be prepared pretty deeply and wide but don't use any commercial fertilizer this time of year. We have tried a few other varieities, some are a little larger but none have the flavor of Heritage that I have found. They bear a small crop in the spring and then a larger one in the fall. We are harvesting them now and sprinkling them on cereal, mixing them in the fresh peaches now available, and just eating them with a little sugar and 1/2 & 1/2. yum!

Good for you but not so sure it would be good to do that in zone 6... ~ Suzi

My spousal unit thinks I have to wait until they go dormant to ship them. Is this right? Don't they need to grow roots a bit before the cold arrives?

No offense, but I just did a 2-second web-search which told me in no uncertain terms that Heritage Raspberries are best planted in the early spring as soon as the ground can be worked.

wow, we are getting different information. The place I looked said spring or fall. I will check with the Cooperative Extension Service today.

The reasoning I found on the sites stated that fall-planted raspberries can put out a lot of new growth that gets killed off quickly in cold climes & can weaken a new plant.

oic
Do you know if the berries can be frozen successfully?

Never grew this particular cultivar, but I freeze all kinds of raspberries successfully simply by freezing them on a cookie sheet and when frozen, putting them in a freezer bag. Don't know why these would be different.

Wayne

I had a Heritage raspberry bush this past spring that I bought in March. Planted it along with other different varieties of raspberries and the only one that died was the Heritage. I talked to a nursery about it and they said that the Heritage is susceptible to diseases more than the newer varieties.
So you guys have success with Heritage? Is there another fall-bearing raspberry out there that is better?
Thanks, Carol

There is new one called Carolina. It has larger berries and it tastes almost as good as Heritage. We have a little test row of them now.