Terry L. Ettinger Horticulture Consulting Services
Meeting The Needs Of Today With A Vision For The Future
Questions of the Week
Tree and Small Fruits
My
favorite breakfast is a well-made Egg's Benedict. However, running a
very, very close second is a slice, or two, of my grandmother's
black raspberry pie. Not blackberry or red raspberry pie. Oh no, I mean black raspberry pie!
When I was a kid, there was no obstacle (deer and black flies the size of B-52 bombers, downed cottonwood trees, the heat and humidity of late June and, of course, the nasty thorns all along the canes of the black raspberry plants) that could keep me from harvesting gallons, and I do mean gallons, of black raspberries from the most inaccessible reaches of the Hennepin Canal Parkway State Park that ran along the edge of my grandparent's farm in northwestern Illinois.
While raspberries aren't too common in upstate New York gardens, I do receive plenty of questions on how to prune them - as well as how to care and prune fruit trees, grapes, currents and other fruiting plants, too!
For my answers, click on the links at right.
Also, for far more information on growing a variety of tree and small fruit than I have the time to provide on this website, a team of specialists at Penn State University are constantly updating one of the most outstanding horticulture-related resources I've ever come across - "Fruit Production for the Home Gardener - A Comprehensive Guide."