How to make supports for raspberry plants

Raspberries need holding upright to stop them spreading and to make it easier to ripen and pick the fruit. All you need is some old fence posts, some offcuts of wood, a few screws and some wire.

I planted my raspberries a while ago but I decided they needed better supports than the original ones I put in. I've created a much better system which is easier to put together and install.

Grow Your Own Raspberries: The 80 Minute Allotment

The only cost is for a few screws and some wire. All the wood I used is recycled - some discarded fence posts and offcuts of deck board and other wood.

There are two fence posts, each about 5 feet (150cm) long, one for each end of my row of raspberries. 

I screwed various offcuts of wood to the posts, four on each. The lowest will be about 18 inches (45cm) above the ground when installed, and the others are further up the posts at regular intervals. 

My home made raspberry supports

There is no need to measure them too precisely, but the horizontal pieces should be at roughly the same heights on both posts so that they more or less mirror each other. This will enable the wires to be approximately horizontal, though again it doesn't need to be exact.

I put screws on the top side of ends of the horizontal pieces, near to the outside ends. These are for attaching the wires, so that the wires run like tram lines from the horizontal pieces at one end, to the corresponding ones at the opposite end, forming two parallel sets of four wires either side of the raspberry row.

At the allotment I dug a hole for each post and used a rubber mallet to hammer them down as far as I could, before packing the earth in around the base so that they are nice and steady.

Finally I attached the first of the wires, and tied in the raspberries that have grown so far. I'll add the remaining wires later and tie in any long stems as they grow.

The longest shoots are now tied in

Apart from that, raspberries are pretty easy. They'll need watering when the weather is dry, and netting to stop the birds eating all the fruit, but hopefully we'll be able to enjoy some lovely fresh raspberries this year.

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