On Friday we’re getting five raspberry plants from Harvest, Brighton & Hove’s Food Partnership. Harvest are promoting raspberry growing in public spaces and community gardens all over Brighton & Hove because once they get going, they produce wonderful fruit which is easily accessible and shared. For fruit which costs a fortune in little plastic supermarket punnets, raspberries are very, very easy to grow. As a contributor to a US forum put it: “I don’t seem to be able to kill raspberries, which makes them my kind of plant ”

Our canes will be autumn fruiting varieties, as these don’t need so much support as the summer fruiting varieties. This just means that we cut them back to the ground in late winter, and they fruit on the new growth from late August through to October.

I think they’ll probably be best in one of our central raised beds where they’ll be visible from the gate. We’ve already incorporated lots of well-rotten manure – which raspberries like – and they’ll get a good deal of sunlight from the south, while not shading other beds too much. At least one website positively advises growing in raised beds as it means you can get the ph. level of the soil right. Raspberries like a fairly neutral ph. of 6. In our area, they can suffer chlorosis (yellowing around the veins of the leaves) because of chalky soil.

Raspberries are ridiculously easy to propagate. I have a couple of small raspberry plants growing on in my greenhouse which were originally prunings planted in the soil to defend last summer’s vegetables from local cats. Last March, a friend gave me some unlikely looking twigs cut from her raspberry canes.  I planted them and they bore small amounts of fruit in September and are now well-established . All it takes is a twig …

Raspberries do need a good supply of nutrients in the soil, and an even supply of moisture. Last summer, I went walking in the Auvergne, France’s central area of extinct volcanos and lakes. We stuffed ourselves with handful after handful of raspberries growing wild along the paths through the pastures. Why were raspberries so plentiful there? Rich mineral soil, fairly constant levels of humidity and plenty of cattle to provide manure. It’s not quite the ecosystem we’re offering our Harvest raspberry canes at London Road Station, but they should find a conducive habitat in our well-manured raised bed.

Here’s what the RHS say about looking after raspberries.