Soft fruits

I blindfolded my OH this morning and gave him a blob of each to taste. Which one did you like the most - the first or the second? First DEFINATELY he replied. First was the Plum and this was the first time we had picked them and made jam from them. Always hungered for Damsons up until now. Both converted,
Jenny

 

I read on the RHS website yesterday that one blackcurrant bush will yield about 3kgs of fruit. Is that really true?

 

Yup that is so true JJ...I have a Blackcurrant bush in my garden and it sure does produce bumper crops..My mother picks the fruit and makes jam with it..

 

A couple of houses ago I had an allotment sized veg garden and devoted an area 5m x 5m over to blackcurrant. I was self sufficient for fresh or frozen fruit year round (it is my favourite UK grown fruit) so I find that claim believable. My Grampy always renewed his bushes after four or five years as older bushes don't crop as well. That is easily done by cuttings or layering. He also planted them rather deep.

 

My thoughts are on how much crop you will get. Perhaps with Jam making you can freeze a cup full of harvest, and then harvest again (and freeze) in a few days and ... eventually?!! have enough to make a batch of jam?

I don't make Jam (although if & when our bread maker dies I would replace with one that could make jam too so that I can covert small amounts of excess fruit into jam), so I am more interested in having enough plants to get a meal off. Dribs and drabs isn't any good for that - so I have 6 Courgette plants to be sure that we can feed a dozen people on Sunday BBQs and suffer some (Some?I mean SOME!!) throw-aways at other times (we don't freeze much, as we like to eat with the seasons).

So: I have 10 Raspberry canes of each variety (I have 10 varieties, so 100 canes in all, but their fruiting time is spread from late June, or maybe Early July (I forget!!, sorry) through to October). 10 canes gives a good continuous harvest during the weeks that they are ripe. Of course your 5 canes will bulk up pretty quickly.

I have 2 blackberries. They crop well, and they grow HUGE, but for my money I think the wild ones in the hedgerows around and about taste better. They need to be anywhere from 8' to 12' apart (depending on vigour of the variety), I reckon your 5 is going to be too many?? (I'm sure Ashridge trees will change your order if you decide to, they are a good company and great quality plants)

What rootstock did you select for the Plum? I see Ashridge Trees say that "our 2 year old Victoria plum trees (bushes and half standards) are on St Julien A rootstocks, our maidens are on Pixy which we think is a better rootstock for this variety if you want to train a fan or espalier" and I bow to their knowledge, but in general I dislike dwarfing rootstocks. of course they are necessary in some situations, but I think they are more trouble to look after, and if you can get away with the St Julien A rooting stock that would be my choice. For pot grown it might be too vigorous though ... but I would expect it to be more tolerant of watering etc.

Victoria is classed as self pollinating; my view is that all fruit trees benefit from a pollination partner (i.e. a different variety which flowers at the same time and thus cross pollinates). Self pollinating varieties are usually given that label because they either produce shed loads of pollen (so pollinate themselves reasonably well but also, as a nice side effect, make good pollination partners) or they shed less fruit in the June Drop. Either way, heavier crops are more likely with a pollination partner, and it also avoids any tendency of the plant to crop biennially. Victoria is a workhorse though, and tasty, so it might be unnecessary ... and in a built up area you might well have a suitable pollination partner within Bee-fly distance

 

Reuben being primocane (rather than floricane AKA normal blackberries) have a different pruning regime, so do they also have different planting centres?

 

Ah, good point, completely missed that, thanks.

 

http://www.rhsplants.co.uk/plants/_/blackberry-reuben/classid.2000018100/

"plant at 2m intervals ... Cut back all the canes to just above ground level in late winter or early spring each year. ... When the canes have reached 1m tall, 'soft-tip' them by removing the top 2 to 5cm of growth. This will encourage the stems to branch and therefore increase the yield.

To grow as a primocane (ie producing two, smaller crops each year), cut back the new spring stems, which have produced fruit at their tips in autumn, to a point just below where the blackberries were produced, soon after they have finished cropping. These half-canes can then be left to overwinter, will put on new top growth in spring and will then go on to produce the first crop of berries in early summer. After these two year old canes have finished fruiting they should be cut right back to their base. In the meantime, new canes will have emerged from the base of the plant in spring and these should be tied onto their support as they grow. These new canes will then produce the second, later crop and should have their tops lopped off after fruiting. This then creates a repeating cycle."

"To grow as a primocane" - I'm not sure they phrased that correctly?

 

I have two young plants I bought this year and thought I would at least need to buy another 5 to get a decent yield. Don't think I will now.

 

I would say that a total of five is ideal. Bear in mind that in a few years you will want to replace older bushes on a cyclical basis so you may be only harvesting from four in any one year

 

Yup you will not need to buy any more plants JJ..But your young plants will need 2 years till establish to get the full potential from your bush