# Weeds in Raspberrys



## bowdonkey (Oct 6, 2007)

I have about 200" of raspberrys that the weeds really took over. I mowed both sides today so the row is about 1 1/2" wide. I'll newspaper and woodchip this area. Is there anyway to get rid of the weeds around the plants without having to pull them?


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## luvrulz (Feb 3, 2005)

Not that i know of - if you find one - tell us all!


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## BackfourtyMI. (Sep 3, 2007)

My raspberries are in desperate need of weeding too. 
I'm thinking of putting mulch down real heavy in the spring on each side of the row's so at least I'll only have to weed directly around each plant?


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

All I can say is "May God bless you in your efforts." Be careful with mulch around red raspberry plants - it can stop the new canes from emerging.

If they are fall-bearers, you can wait to weed until you cut the canes back for winter. At least you won't get stuck with thorns when you weed.


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## ChristieAcres (Apr 11, 2009)

Be careful about the use of woodchips. It is a Nitrogen robber when decomposing... I was considering what to plant around our Raspberries and am considering clover. Will research that, otherwise, will mulch with compost. Have a similar problem, but worse with the Blueberries. That section of the garden got away from me. So, now quite a chore to get back in shape, but need something for groundcover.


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## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

I used to use almost up to a foot of leaves in my red and black raspberries. Eventually found out that if there were enough berry canes, weeds weren't much of a problem. The thorns on the canes eliminate most of them. Exception seems to be goldenrod which coexists with the raspberries with no apparent problem.

Martin


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## ChristieAcres (Apr 11, 2009)

Martin, what would you recommend for planting between blueberry bushes? Mine are in raised beds with high acid soil, growing great, but have weeds & grass growing too profusely---grass seeds must have been in the soil (unlike the grass we have on our property). I'd like to clean out the beds and plant something...preferably perennial.


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

lorichristie said:


> Martin, what would you recommend for planting between blueberry bushes? Mine are in raised beds with high acid soil, growing great, but have weeds & grass growing too profusely---grass seeds must have been in the soil (unlike the grass we have on our property). I'd like to clean out the beds and plant something...preferably perennial.


Pine straw or needles - I usually put down six inches. Blueberries don't like competition for their water. If you have a horrible weed problem, put cardboard around the plant, then the mulch.


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## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

lorichristie said:


> Martin, what would you recommend for planting between blueberry bushes? Mine are in raised beds with high acid soil, growing great, but have weeds & grass growing too profusely---grass seeds must have been in the soil (unlike the grass we have on our property). I'd like to clean out the beds and plant something...preferably perennial.


Plant nothing. The bushes need all the nutrients they can get and don't need competition. Like the previous poster said, mulch. Pine needles are great for short term. Pine bark would be greater and last longer. Sawdust is also good and lasts somewhat between the two. 

Martin


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## BackfourtyMI. (Sep 3, 2007)

Callieslamb said:


> All I can say is "May God bless you in your efforts." Be careful with mulch around red raspberry plants - it can stop the new canes from emerging.
> 
> If they are fall-bearers, you can wait to weed until you cut the canes back for winter. At least you won't get stuck with thorns when you weed.


 

Mine are the red everbearing bushes. I won't put the mulch right up to the row of plants, I'll leave some space on each side of the row's & use grass clippings but the weeds that are the worst for me is like the crab grass & that is a real bugger to get out if it gets away from you.


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## How Do I (Feb 11, 2008)

Canby don't seem to tolerate weeds well at all. The first few years they did really well. But this year I got behind on the weeding and it's really showing on the health of the plants. The Latham are a different story altogether. They are so thick, weeds have little chance of getting started in there.


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## bowdonkey (Oct 6, 2007)

Good stuff all. These are Boyne and are some of the best on the farm. I wonder if an aggresive weeding and then a bunch of corn gluten meal would hold things down next year?


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## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

If it's crab grass, then it's an annual and corn gluten meal will prevent it from germinating. If it's quack grass, it won't work. Best you could do without sprays would be to wait for a heavy rain and then pull out gobs of it and hope to get a lot of the roots. Then shallow hoeing from now to frost to slow regeneration. Hoe again in early spring before new canes begin forming. Once established, the shallow root systems of red raspberries usually out-compete most other plants. As invasive as lemon balm is, I let it grow right at the end of the raspberry row since it can't win. In fact, it's the berries which moved and sent up new canes through the balm this year.

Martin


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## wyld thang (Nov 16, 2005)

ground cover under berries--plant strawberries or greens. They grow just fine this way out in the wild (think about it )


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## bowdonkey (Oct 6, 2007)

Thought I'd tell you all my experiment for weeds in raspberrys. We have a super invasive and aggressive weed here called "canary grass". Travels by runners and a fine airborne seed. Impossible to hold back, at least as far as I know. Anyway I took a section of raspberry row and using a hand pruner I cut all the raspberry canes down, big and small. All of them. Leaving the grass untouched. After 2 days [this leaves time for the raspberry nubs to dry out] I went back and sprayed the row with Roundup. I sprayed on a hot dry afternoon. After the grass browned up , the row was weed eated flat. Today, about 2 1/2 weeks after starting this project, the raspberrys are growing back with hardly a grass stem showing. I'll mulch these when they get a little taller. Hopefully this treatment will last a couple years. I don't like using Roundup but an unnatural problem sometimes needs an unnatural solution.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

My raspberries are in a raised bed and I mulch it everyyear with 6" to 8" s of compost, I have gravel paths between the raised beds. If there is a weed it is easy to pull. Blueberries love to be mulched with sawdust for acidity, a foot doesn't hurt them at all....James


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## NickieL (Jun 15, 2007)

My raspberries out shade any weeds, and the layer of compost I apply in the fall when they lose leaves keeps down anything else.

My wall o raspberries....


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## bowdonkey (Oct 6, 2007)

The canary grass can grow 6'+ in a single season by the way. My raspberry rows are located between a road and a woodline, another between an abandoned field and a woodline. Both rows are 150'+ long and mulched on both sides about 3' wide with cardboard or newspaper and about a foot of woodchips on top. The canary grass will send runners through the chips, under the paper, where ever to send up new shoots. Bad stuff! The raspberries themselves have about 6-8" of grass clippings put on them about every spring. After a good clean out, the rows have a couple seasons of little competition and then the battle gets lost. It's a pain trying to keep this stuff in check.


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## casusbelli (Jan 6, 2009)

Whatever you do, be careful with the Roundup - raspberries are supersensitive to it. Since honeysuckle leafs out so early in Spring, I once sprayed honeysuckle winding around my canes before the canes had even leafed out - and I lost them all.


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## casusbelli (Jan 6, 2009)

Another idea for you - since cane berries are so impervious to juglone, try mulching with walnut leaves - will kill many weeds, but raspberries won't care. (If you can find them, since it's not Fall..)


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## Dexter (Sep 27, 2008)

I have canary grass (reed canary aka canary reed) and have had a lot of trouble with the veggies getting smothered.
It's unlike all the other weeds, worse than thistles for sure too.

I don't know what I'm going to do with raspberries as I'm planting canes next spring.
As it is guaranteed we will get canary grass in them and I don't want to use roundup near my food, I was thinking about a big spring weeding, followed by irregyular/regular if required VERY CAREFUL sprayings of"horticultural vinegar" directly on the weeds.
It only defoliates but will surely allow the canes to get a big head start.
The walnut leaves mulching was an excellent idea and I will try that at the same time.


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## bowdonkey (Oct 6, 2007)

I wish walnut grew this far north. Tons where I grew up. SW WI.


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## GoatsRus (Jan 19, 2003)

I don't know what canary grass is, but if it's a grass, you may be able to get rid of it with Poast. Poast kills all grasses, but will not kill weeds. You can spray it around your corn also ONLY if its poast protected seeds.


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## bowdonkey (Oct 6, 2007)

Thanks to everyone for the input. My experiment worked. Got some nice 6-12" canes coming back. The outside of the rows got another 2-3" of woodchips added and the foot wide row where the raspberrys are growing got 5-6" of grass clippings. I'll add more grass clippings before the new plants get much taller. Just a little bit of grass has germinated through the grass clipping mulch.Weeds are much more manageable and hopefully the deer won't graze the new canes down to far before next year. In hindsight I wish I had planted Heritage variety.


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## where I want to (Oct 28, 2008)

FOr those who have horses, they will weed grass around the raspberries for you. The small patch of them I have is in the middle of my "lawn" and I periodically put up a portable hotwire to let the horses mow for me. They will reach under the vines somewhat to grab grass. The trick is to let them work on it only a couple of hours on a number of days. If they get too bored, they will get into things they shouldn't. But if they are only in the area for a short time, they will hoover the grass.
Of course I have to weedwack the stray raspberry canes on occasion. Sigh- nothings perfect.


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

Backfourty said:


> Mine are the red everbearing bushes. I won't put the mulch right up to the row of plants, I'll leave some space on each side of the row's & use grass clippings but the weeds that are the worst for me is like the crab grass & that is a real bugger to get out if it gets away from you.


You can mulch AFTER the canes have appeared for the year. I usually just put on some long beekeeper gloves, flood the raspberry patch and go at it. I probably lose production, but I also let my canes grow close together. I think they recommend to thin them back to six inches apart - I don't. Maybe that helps keeps the weeds back at the price of berries? I get plenty anyway so I don't worry about it.


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## HCK (May 2, 2006)

This is my second year with raspberries. Two 50-foot rows. I do not mulch and I do not spray poisons and I do not have any weed problems. I simply use a wheel hoe with a stirrup blade about once a week to slice off the emerging weeds (and straying cane sprouts) and cultivate the soil. It takes me less than ten minutes and it is not a hard job at all. Fact is, after a few weeks of this, very few weeds germinate since the stirrup blade cultivates only the top inch or so of soil and does not bring fresh weed seeds to the surface. Also, the edge of the thin stirrup blade is sharp enough to "edge" the sod where the soil meets lawn, thus keeping the grasses from getting a foothold. 

You can make your own wheel hoe by following the step-by-step plans at www.PlanetWhizbang.com. or you can buy one already made from Planet Whizbang or one of the other makers. These hoes are the best tool I know of fow winning the war with weeds in your garden.

Herrick Kimball
Moravia


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