Varieties Adapted to Front Range Colorado

Amy's Apricot tomato

Cherry tomatoes are convenient for many people and golden cherry tomatoes have been of interest. Sun Gold is one that seems to do well in Denver and has become popular.

This year I tried another heirloom, Amy's Apricot, that did equally as well and has excellent flavor. An indeterminate type like Sun Gold, the only concern for some may be that Amy's Apricot is is 10 days later at 74 days versus Sun Gold at 55 to 65 days. Tomatofest.com carries Amy's Apricot seed.

Caroline fall bearing raspberry

Switching to small fruit, your fall bearing raspberries should be yielding well by now. If you are still growing Heritage red raspberry, consider switching to an earlier bearing variety when you pull out plants (generally necessary due to virus buildup after 10 years or so).

Newer fall raspberry varieties such as Caroline, Jaclyn and Autumn Britten bear fruit 2 weeks earlier. Late bearing Heritage has always been problematic with coming into bearing when frost danger may threaten in mid to late September.

Fall bearing raspberries are generally recommended in Colorado because they bear on first year canes; you don't need to worry about winter-kill of canes or buds as you do with summer bearing types that don't bear until their second year. Fall bearing types are easy for pruning too because canes are cut to the ground every year in December/January and regrow to produce a crop the next season.

Photo credit: Both photos credit Carl Wilson

It's raspberry time

In spite of nearly every tree fruit escaping spring blossom-killing freezes and bearing well this year, small fruit remain more certain to produce yearly crops. Red and yellow raspberries are the most reliable. Black raspberries are not widely recommended because of lack of cold hardiness; however roots do survive to try producing fruit again in two years time. This may change as better adapted and more reliable black raspberry varieties are introduced.

If several red and yellow raspberry varieties are planted, you can realize a harvest from midseason to frost. Summer-bearing Nova, Killarney and Boyne produced crops in July and now the fall-bearing types Anne( yellow), Autumn Britten (photo above right) and old standby, Heritage are ripening and can produce up till frost.

Raspberries are naturally a biennial, growing canes one year and producing fruit on those overwintered canes the summer of the second year. The problem comes with overwintering canes. In most parts of the Front Range this usually isn’t a problem. With summer bearing types, you wait until the canes are finished fruiting in the summer of their second year to remove them.

Post WWII breeding produced the fall-bearing types that grow canes and produce fruit in the same season, With no canes to overwinter, harvests are more assured and pruning is easier since they are simply cut to the ground after the fall harvest.

What are the problems with raspberries? Homeowners often ask why their raspberries that once produced well fail to bear a crop anymore. Raspberries will last about ten years and bear best in the first five years of that period. After that accumulated viruses carried in by aphids decrease production. The planting should be removed and new stock planted. Don't get plants from fellow gardeners because of viruses. Buy virus-free stock from reputable nurseries. Plant in new soil that has been amended with organic matter and drainage ensured often by building a raised soil bed.

More raspberry information is available in the CSU Extension raspberry fact sheet. Give them a try.

Photo credit: Autumn Britten fruit, Raspberry canes, Carl Wilson