They are relatively easy to grow, requiring little more than a patch of full sun and some well-drained soil. They are highly perishable or often unavailable commercially, so the home planting assures a supply of this delicious treat. Plants belonging to the Rubus genus typically have perennial roots with shoots that are biennial. Raspberries and blackberries are the two most common bramble crops. Red, black, and purple raspberries are the three most commonly grown raspberry types.
Red raspberries can be either of two types.
Summer-bearing red raspberries bear their fruit from late June to August. They have the typical biennial life cycle of a bramble, so their canes die after fruiting. Primocane-bearing types such as Heritage fruit during the first year, and therefore are the exception to the life cycle outlined above. Also called everbearing raspberries, they will fruit again in the spring on the buds below those that fruited the previous fall. They are the most winter hardy of the raspberries.