BEST TIME TO PICK RASPBERRIES

Unlike some fruit, raspberries do not continue to ripen once picked. One problem with shop-bought raspberries, and why they are often lacking in flavour, is that the growers have to pick them before they reach full ripeness or they will not survive being packed, transported, put on shop shelves, and being further handled before they reach the point of being eaten. When growing your own, the best time to pick them is the stage where the raspberries are about to fall off the cane with no help from you. You can easily identify this stage because the edible part of the raspberry (the 'drupelet') starts to come away from the core (the 'receptacle'), as shown below. 

Polka raspberry separate from its core

They also start to darken when ripe, achieving a slightly bluish kind of red. Leave picking too late, and you may well find them as mush on the ground. 

At the moment, I have a glut of raspberries on old canes from last year and this is just the summer crop, more will arrive on this year's (new) canes in autumn after I have cut to the ground the old canes which have finished fruiting. 

Raspberries take up such limited garden space and yield so much. Furthermore, I have never known grubs or bugs to be on my canes despite the fact that I do not spray them EVER. They do, however, get rust disease now and then but that has not been a problem. They have also been known to be affected by white drupelet disorder but, again, not a problem. 

Polka raspberries, ripe for the picking

And finally...

Bowl of raspberries

These below look like a painting but they are not, they are the real thing.  

Polka raspberries and Vanilla ice cream