Can you winter over raspberries and strawberries in a pot?

[Stubbornhillfarm]

My daughter is near San Fransisco, Ca. She can't plant in the ground as they rent. But she is wondering if she can just keep the plants in the containers over the winter. I can't really help her as our climate is so different.

Do any of you have expertise in this area?

Thanks a bunch!

 

[catjac1975]

Strawberries would be OK-I don't know about raspberries. What zone is she in? She will have to feed the plants well to get any fruit production.

 

[897tgigvib]

In barely zone 4 Montana at the Greenhouse Nursery, we used to overwinter a couple varieties of Raspberries outside in pots. We'd cut them down to the nubs during the October winter preparations and put them in the beds rather tight packed, then cover the beds with white nursery cloth. (Some brand of Remay).

But she's in San Francisco, with that SPLENDID climate, especially if on the Pacific side, with only the rare barely if ever frost.

Depending on the kind of Raspberry, cut it to the nubs or only cut off the oldest canes. Let it be in a good sized, 5 gallon bare minimum, pot with plenty of drainage, and good compost for soil.

Some bramble berries might just go semi dormant there. Even here 180 miles north of San Francisco, my thornless Burbank Blackberry held some leaves all winter. Raspberries go dormant a bit easier.

Around dormancy break, right before if possible, uppot them to bigger pots and primo the soil with bone meal or a good organic fertilizer blend. Whitney makes some good mixes. They'll like a sip of well diluted fish emulsion or one of the good cold pressed seaweed liquids well diluted, also available in and near the bay area, once every few weeks in spring, and again in august and september.

That'll make them grow like weeds!
and next year she might want to uppot them again and snip some of the ground shoots off and put them into their own pots.
Next year after that, she will be ready to open a raspberry plant nursery, or a farmer's market...

 

[plainolebill]

my wife had an everbearing raspberry in a pot that she carried from rental to rental for years. We still have the offspring some 40 years later but it seems to like the ground better as it fills a bed about 20 feet long.

 

[897tgigvib]

Ya know, this made me want to google map where I am to find out how far I really am from San Francisco as the Raven flies. Never have really checked it.

 

[897tgigvib]

As the Raven flies on Google Map I find it is 105 miles, only a couple degrees west of straight north. Amazing. It is a lot more than that as ground driving goes.

 

[bobm]

Yea, a lot farther. Since we can't fly like a Raven, and there is this cold ocean water to paddle over, then there are quite a few pesky hills and mountains that we have to go over and around with water hazzards to cross over and mighty few Redwood trees that have a drive through cut out for us surface earth bound creatures to go through so I guess that we have to travel around them .

 

[Stubbornhillfarm]

Great info! Thanks all! She has her mothers desire for gardening. Just not experience to go hand in hand yet. And my knowledge of West Coast gardening is zip! So I am no help to her. I will pass along the info. Many thanks!

Marshall, you are right. Not too far away at all! (as the raven flies)