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A dependable cultivar with a generous early crop 🍓🌿
Family: Rosaceae · Pot diameter: 13cm · organically grown · Height: approximately 45cm
Rubus idaeus ‘Malling Promise’ opens the raspberry season with the familiar, full flavour that belongs to summer. Its red berries have a lively aroma and juicy flesh, delicious fresh, in a simple dessert or in homemade jam. Early cropping is its particular charm, arriving before later cultivars reach their own peak. A classic choice for filling that first summer basket with fruit from your garden, and enjoying the small pleasure of picking it yourself.
Long canes and fruiting side shoots bring a light, cottage-garden character to the edge of a vegetable plot. A raspberry row can quietly define the space, with white spring flowers and red fruit taking their turn against the green foliage.
‘Malling Promise’ delivers classic soft summer-raspberry flavour together with early dependable cropping.
Harvest begins in late June and continues through July.
Large red berries have soft texture, juicy flavour and clear raspberry aroma.
New canes rise each year to carry the following summer crop.
Why you will love it: It delivers familiar home-grown raspberry flavour early and responds clearly to one simple annual pruning routine.
Give sun or bright partial shade and 60–80cm between plants. In very hot areas morning sun protects soft fruit from scorching.
Low aromatic and flowering plants attract insects beyond the new-cane zone.
Sun or bright partial shade; afternoon protection during intense heat.
Even moisture from flowering until the end of harvest.
Very good winter hardiness, suitable for cold areas and exposed gardens with proper support.
Wash fully ripe fruit before eating.
Plant in deep fertile soil that drains well yet stays cool. Add organic mulch around the roots without covering the cane bases.
Water deeply when the top few centimetres dry. Even moisture from flowering to harvest helps fruit fill uniformly.
Tie canes to two wires at about 80 and 150cm and retain 6–8 strong canes per metre of row.
In early spring add mature compost and a balanced fruit-plant feed according to its label. Avoid excess nitrogen.
Mulch the roots, remove weeds by hand and pick frequently. During prolonged heat, provide light afternoon shade.
Remove fruited canes immediately after picking, thin new ones and water at the base for rapid drying.
It is self-fertile and crops alone. Bees and bumblebees help each fruit fill evenly.
It ripens early, usually from late June into mid-July.
Pick when fruit is evenly red and slips from the white core with a gentle lift.
Set netting on a separate frame as the first fruit colours and leave side access for frequent picking.
After planting: tie strong canes loosely and keep soil cool with organic mulch.
Immediately after harvest, with light winter thinning
‘Malling Promise’ fruits on canes grown the previous year. As soon as picking ends, cut only the fruited canes at the base and tie the new green replacements in their place.
Action: In spring thin weak or tightly crowded new shoots.
Retain: Retain 6–8 strong green canes per metre.
Action: During harvest identify the brown canes carrying fruit.
Retain: Keep new green canes intact and tied separately.
Action: After the final picking cut brown fruited canes at the base.
Retain: Tie new green canes to both wires for next summer.
Use sharp, clean tools suited to the diameter of the wood.
Remove only a broken tip and renew loose ties before spring.
Do not do this: Do not cut every cane in winter; the matured green canes are exactly those that will carry the next crop.
Canes rise from the crown beside those due to fruit.
Short laterals on brown year-old canes fill with red raspberries.
Fruited canes are removed and new ones take their place on the wires.
Mature ‘Malling Promise’ has brown fruiting canes tied separately from the new green generation.
A raspberry cane lives for two years: it grows in the first, fruits in the second and then naturally declines.
What to expect after planting: Canes rise from the crown beside those due to fruit.
‘Malling Promise’ comes from the East Malling Research Station in Kent, England, and the breeding programme of N. H. Grubb. Its cross brought together ‘Newburgh’ and selection EM 30/8, whose ancestry included ‘Lloyd George’ and ‘Pyne’s Royal’.
That work produced the early raspberry introduced as ‘Malling Promise’ in 1944. Soon afterwards, Grubb devoted a separate account to the cultivar in the station’s report for 1945, published in 1946.
It entered British and European cultivation as a summer raspberry with vigorous canes and aromatic red fruit. The Malling name preserves its connection with the place where it was raised, while early cropping explains its enduring place in home gardens.
The underground crown is perennial, but each cane has a two-year cycle. Flower buds differentiate on first-year wood and open in the second.
Each raspberry consists of many small drupelets, developing from separate pistils within one flower. At picking, they detach together from the receptacle, which stays on the plant. This is why a ripe raspberry is hollow in the centre.
Six practical answers for choosing, growing, harvesting and pruning this exact cultivar.
It is self-fertile and crops alone. Bees and bumblebees help each fruit fill evenly.
1.5–1.8m high and approximately 0.6–0.8m wide, with the habit described above.
Yes, in a container of at least 45–50 litres with a firm two-post support and consistent watering.
Late June–mid-July, when red fruit slips easily from the white core.
After harvest cut the brown canes that carried fruit. Green non-fruiting canes remain for next summer.
Fruited canes are removed immediately after harvest; winter brings only light thinning.
