From what i've read they black raspberries should not be planted close to reds because black raspberry are more prone to disease spread apparently.

I believe the plants will cross pollinate but unless you are worried about growing the seeds from the berries your plants produce it won't be a concern.

Rabbits will chew on black raspberry plants. i think they will chew on anything actually!!! I've had to fence off mine to keep them out.

They will fruit at about the same time. The red might fruit again in the fall if you have an everbearing variety.

Thank you for posting a response, tyler. Would you know how close too close is? Do you think it would be ok if I planted them on opposite sides of the garden?

This is the only quote I could find that talks about the 2 being planted near each other.

"Red raspberries are planted 3 ft apart in the row with 8-10 ft between rows. Black raspberries are set 2-1/2 ft apart with 8-10 ft between rows being adequate to prevent spread of fungus diseases which tend to be prevalent with the plantings in closer rows."

So if your garden is 8-10 feet across you are probably good to go!!! :)

Thank you again...May I ask where you found your quote? Would love to read more about both. There is so much out there to read that it is hard to sort thru to find the info. thank you again. Happy Spring!!

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-8204.html

This is the site I found the quote.

I ended up putting my black and red raspberries next to each other. It has been two years now and I have not seen any disease problems. My black raspberries fruit before the reds and overlap a bit with the first crop on my reds but my reds are everbearing and I prune them to get both crops.

Rabbits love raspberry plants and even the nasty thorns on the black raspberries don't stop them. If you have summer bearing reds then you'll need to protect the canes over the winter or you won't get berries since they fruit on second year canes. You'll need to protect the black raspberries too since they also fruit on second year canes.

Both types of raspberries spread easily, so I would leave a space between them and the veggie garden. Reds spread underground through runners and end up taking over anything planted near them. Blacks are a bit more manageable as they spread by tip rooting so you only have to keep the tips of the canes from touching the ground if you don't want more plants. You can do this through a combination of trellising and pruning.

Look up Nourse Farms and they have a great planting guide online. There is a lot of good info there.