How to Transplant Raspberries with Success

How to transplant raspberries 

Does your neighbor down the street or across town have some overgrown raspberries that you could (literally) reap a harvest from?! Transplanting raspberries can seem a bit daunting, but I’ll share with you a few tips that will set you up for success and get you harvesting raspberries by year two. 

What tools do you need to transplant raspberries

Most raspberries have thorns, and therefore it might benefit you to dig raspberries before they are full on thorny in early spring. Here are the tools you’ll need to transplant raspberries: 

• Spade
• Some way to keep roots and soil intact. I’ve received and given several raspberries to people in used plastic grocery sacks
• Gardening gloves (optional, but very helpful, for those thorny bastards) 

Steps of How to Transplant Raspberries 

• Choose new, green growth that is on the outskirts of the original plants and what are called canes. Raspberry canes are those brown, somewhat dead looking growth from the year before.
  • *Helpful tip* Transplant raspberries in the early spring when plants are 6-12 inches tall and have fully developed leaves on the stems
• Use the spade to dig around a clump of one to three plants of raspberries, keeping as much soil together as possible.
  • *Helpful tip* If you know you are going to work on transplanting smalled raspberry plants, go out about half an hour ahead of time and water the area, this will help the soil stick together and give your new raspberries a head start. 
• Keep your raspberries in the shade and out of a strong breeze until your ready to place them in their new home
• Clear out grass and other weeds, roughly a foot of space per raspberry, where you’d like them to grow
  • *Helpful tip* raspberries grow in direct sun, or partly shaded. Personally, I would much rather pick raspberries where it’s partly shaded in the late afternoon light, and they are quite prolific either way, so I generally choose to plant where there is dappled sunlight in the afternoon (2:00 p.m. or later) 
• Use your spade to create a hole just as deep as the soil you have with your raspberry transplant

• Use your finger to gently massage soil around your raspberry transplant to fill any air gaps.
  • *Helpful tip* a firm foundation for any plant helps them grow, but don’t compact the soil so tight that you strangle the roots
    • Did you know? Healthy roots are a white/yellow color, brown means they are dead or are dying 
• Water that raspberry transplant!
  • Daily watering will definitely help your raspberry transplant along, but the amount of water may depend on how much sun your raspberry transplants are getting 

Transplanting raspberries can be a great way to spread joy to other homesteaders, expand your growing season, offer a wider variety of plants on your property and give you another level of experience transplanting plants. Transplanted raspberries don’t always take, but if you take several (more than three) at the same time you will likely see what you did wrong between the different ones, and see what worked well with transplanting raspberries. 

I’m cheering you on! For updates follow along on Facebook, Instagram and COMING SOON YouTube!!! 

Until then, please join the “Dirty Fingernail Club.” If you’re in Iowa or nearby states, be on the lookout for other in-person homesteading classes. This is just the start of growing something good!