The term “everbearing” is a horticultural classification primarily applied to small fruit plants, such as strawberries and brambles like raspberries, to describe a specific fruiting pattern over a single growing season. This means the plant yields fruit multiple times or continuously over an extended period, rather than concentrating its entire harvest into a short, intense window. This extended fruiting allows gardeners to enjoy a longer supply of fresh fruit compared to traditional varieties.
Defining the Everbearing Habit
The everbearing habit describes a pattern where fruit production occurs in multiple flushes or continuously until the first hard frost, rather than being limited to a single, concentrated period. For many varieties, this translates into two main crops: a lighter harvest in the late spring or early summer, followed by a heavier crop in the fall. This dual-crop system is a hallmark of many everbearing red raspberry varieties, which are also often called fall-bearing raspberries.
Some modern everbearing strawberries, specifically those classified as “day-neutral,” exhibit a nearly continuous fruiting cycle. Varieties like ‘Albion’ or ‘Seascape’ will flower and set fruit repeatedly as long as temperatures remain moderate, providing a steady supply of berries. However, this continuous cycle often results in smaller individual fruit size compared to single-crop varieties, as the plant must consistently allocate resources for development.
How Everbearing Differs from Single-Crop Varieties
The fundamental difference between everbearing and single-crop plants lies in the physiological triggers that initiate the formation of flower buds. Single-crop varieties, often referred to as “June-bearing” in strawberries or “summer-bearing” in raspberries, rely on a specific photoperiod, or day length, to set their buds. June-bearing strawberries, for instance, form their reproductive buds in the late fall as the days shorten and temperatures drop.
This photoperiod sensitivity means that once the buds are set, the plant focuses its energy on vegetative growth until the following spring, resulting in a single, large burst of fruit. Everbearing varieties, by contrast, are either “day-neutral” or have a lower sensitivity to day length, allowing them to initiate flower buds over a much longer period. Day-neutral strawberries, in particular, will continue to form flowers throughout the summer, pausing only during periods of extreme heat.
In everbearing raspberries, the dual-crop capability is linked to the two-year life cycle of their canes. The plant produces its first crop on the tips of the primocanes (first-year canes) in the fall. The lower portion of those same canes, now called floricanes, will then produce a second, earlier crop the following summer before the cane dies back.
Managing Everbearing Plants for Optimal Yield
The extended fruiting cycle of everbearing plants requires specific management practices to maintain productivity and fruit quality. Consistent nutrient input is necessary because the continuous flowering, setting, and ripening of fruit places a high demand on the plant’s energy reserves. A split application of a balanced fertilizer, with the first application in early spring and the second in early summer, helps support this ongoing production.
Cane management is particularly important for everbearing raspberries to maximize the harvest. If a grower desires both the fall and summer crops, the tips of the primocanes that fruited in the fall should be pruned back to the fruited portion in the spring, leaving the rest of the cane to fruit again in the summer as a floricane. Conversely, if only the larger, more reliable fall crop is wanted, all canes can be cut down to the ground in the late winter or early spring before new growth begins, forcing all energy into the fall primocane crop.
Everbearing strawberry varieties typically produce fewer runners than June-bearing types, allowing them to be grown in a more contained system, but they still require attention to prevent overcrowding. Due to the continuous nature of the harvest, more frequent picking is necessary, sometimes every two to three days during peak periods, to prevent berries from over-ripening and to encourage the plant to continue setting new fruit. Consistent watering is also needed, as the continuous fruit development makes the plants susceptible to drought stress.