We are late getting our berries pruned this year, because I wanted to use them for the workshop last Saturday. I pruned most of the raspberries on Saturday, but we still had to do some cleanup and then prune up the currants and gooseberries.

Pruning and some good old fashioned TLC has done wonders for this black raspberry. 2 years ago, I was determined that it would get one last chance before getting torn out. It had about 6 berries in 2008. With some fertilizer and pruning, it was fairly productive in 2009, and then last year…

Yeah, I can’t wait for summer either! It was definitely vigorous last year, and we had to prune out lots of canes that were trying to root themselves all over the place.

We pruned out all of the old, diseased red raspberry canes, leaving just these new shoots to become this year’s primocanes. Because of the problems last year, if we see any signs of disease this year on these berries, I think we will remove the plants.

We also pruned out some dead canes in the currant and gooseberry bushes. They are already blooming, which is a bit late to be pruning, really. I checked last year, and I took pictures of the currant and gooseberry blooms on April 4th, so we’re apparently running about the same as last year. (I think we might be a hair behind right now, the flowers aren’t open quite as much.)

Fun Fact: Studying the timing of when certain plants bloom, etc from year to year is called phenology.