raspberry rage

[parakeet]

I have a row of summer-fruiting raspberries (Glen Moys, if you're interested) which I planted about four years ago and for the first three years did pretty well. Then last summer, the stems grew up as normal, but produced not a single fruit. They did not appear diseased as far as I could tell.

The odd thing was I have a row of autumn-fruiting ones next to them and they produced fruit perfectly normally.

I have two questions:

1. Does anyone know what the heck might have caused that?

2. Do you think it's worth my leaving them in the ground for this summer to give them one last chance, or should I dig them up? I don't have a huge garden so space is at a premium and it would be nice to put something productive there if they're not going to do anything any more. (I know not to plant some more raspberries there.)

Thanks in advance to anyone that helps.

do you prune them back to the ground when they've finished fruiting and bend them over into a walking stick shape so that they fruit more efficiently?

I do prune back to the ground, although perhaps with the problem ones I might not have done it as soon as they finished fruiting - I might have waited a couple of months. Could that have been it?

As for bending them over into a walking stick shape - eh? What? When do you do that then?

nowish! I make an 'H' frame with canes and just bend the raspberry canes over, tie them off with string or wire. Promise I'm not taking the p.

I do the bending over thing too, honest guv, makes more fruiting shoots grow on the cane. I do it when I tidy the canes up in the winter.

Thanks for trying to help but I'm totally confused. I cut my stems back to about 6 inches high, there's nothing to bend over (and the stems are pretty rigid anyway.