Fruit
We feel that no garden or allotment veg patch is complete without some kind of fruit contrbution and once you start growing them, we think youll soon agree for the modest ammount of attention they require, the benefits are huge and satisfying.
These Hints and tips have been forumlated from our experiences in our years of allotment gardening, and of course should be followed with consideration of your own soil and land type, we hope you find them helpful. All tips should be followed with care and attention should always be payed to manufacturer or sowing instructions.
Below is not an exhaustive list of the fruit varieties on our plot, but they are the ones we have had most experience of and feel most confident about giving tips on.
RHUBARB
- Do not pull any stems for the first 12 months after planting or dividing tubers.
- Remove dead & decaying leaves during the autumn.
- Add top dressing of manure or compost to rot down over the winter and protect the roots beneath.
- In winter you can dig up your tubers, divide them if necessary to remove any diseased or old material and re- plant so that thier crowns are just below the surface of the soil.
-Take care not to allow your patch to become overcrowded.
- When fruiting, do not begin pulling leaves until there is a good crown of them.
- When pulling, put your hand as far down the stem as it will go and pull directly towards yourself in a sharp firm motion, to remove the whole stem and not leave a broken portion at its base.
- Rhubarb leaves are poisonous and not that suitable for the compost heap, although they can be steeped in water and left for a season to create a very stinky but effective & organic pest repellant. Or placed in thier own compost pile and a regular handful of garden lime thrown over them to neutralise some of the acidity.
- The fruit can be stored in a variety of ways and keep you in puddings for many months. The simplest way we have found is to cook it in chunks, briefly with a small ammount of water util tender, place in sealable plastic boxes and when cool put in the freezer. You can then defrost exactly however much you need, whenever you require it.
STRAWBERRIES
- Plant or relocate into position in early spring or late summer.
- Use manure or potash feeds to strengthen the plants after planting.
- Strawberries can fruit from thier first year onwards, however after the 3rd year it is often good practice to replace your plants as they will be past thier fruiting best.
- Use straw or shredded paper beneath the plants to cushion the fruit as it forms and prevent them spoiling on the soil.
- Beware of slugs and four legged pests which will happily come and munch away at your ripe fruit, all to often have we picked up what looks to be a perfect and ripe specimine to find that the other half of it is missing. Slug traps, bran and egg shells can be useful organic weapons.
- Runners which are a natural reproduction process of strawberry plants can be trained into pots (after the plant has fruited so as not to interfere with cropping - any which arrive beforehand should be removed) and eventually separated from thier parent to form new replacement plants.
- Although training runners is a good cheap way of replacing plants rememebr it is good garden husbandry to regularly replace or top up your fruit patch with new disease resitstant stock.
- After fruiting trim all leaves back down to the crown (if you do not want to wait for runners to form) to encourage new leaf formation and for the plant to invest in itself for next season.
- It is inadviseable to put the leaves of strawberries on the compost heap as they can harbour disease, burn or bin them instead.
RASPBERRIES
- Never move or relocate raspberries when they are in thier growing season i.e. March- November or it can frequently result in the death of the plant.
- Train them along wire or a structure to keep them in order and the canes upright.
- Protect from birds and pests with the use of netting or a fruit cage.
- Pick the fruits regularly and be aware for any rotting or infected specimines which should be removed and disposed of as soon as possible.
- As the plants fruit they will throw up new green stems from thier base, it is these that the plant will fruit on next year. The wood fruited on the previous season should be cut out in the winter or early spring once it has dried and its fluids returned to the plant below ground.
- It can be useful to identify the canes which have bourne fruit (for example with string, coloured material or chord) so that they can be easily removed in the winter and no new canes removed in error.
- There are several theorys on the trimming back of raspberries, some say to chop to 25cm's above the ground, others say take a foot off the top. However, we have found they produce perfectly satisfactory crops without pruning whatsoever, so think carefully and maybe experiment when considering this in your own garden or allotment.
- Feed at the beggining and throughout the season with compost, manure, ash or a foliar feed to enhance the health of your plants.
- Keep well watered, especially any new additions to your patch.
- Be sure to use crop protection netting that will actually be large enough to allow bees and other pollinating insects access to your canes and thier flowers.
GOOSBERRIES
- Plant in early spring possbly up a post/ stake or next to a structure to help support its weight and guide its growth.
- Feed as per the above.
- Beware of its thorniness, many a time have we been caught out and believe us they are not to be trifled with. Handle with the use of gloves or just very carefully and be prepared for a few scratches.
- Protect with netting or a fruit cage.
- Be observant as when the fruits form and the branches begin to bow under thier weight & may need support where necessary.
- When the fruits are of a substantial size but still hard and green they are best for use in cooking things such as pies and jams etc. For fools and use as a more traditional fruit, wait til they swell further and become more yellowy in hue with a more mellow flavour.
- Ater fruiting take care not to damage the plant in any way and consider pruning it. The general consensus seems to be prune out clustered central branches to keep an open crown, these plants can even be trained upwards into standards by pruning out lower branches to make a trunk, which could be useful if space is limited.
