The blog has been quiet for the past year, largely because we did little in the garden. The only crops we planted were chillies and tomatoes in the glasshouses and polytunnel and a bed of potatoes outdoors. We tended the fruit trees and the soft fruit, but otherwise took a year out. Now we have been working to tidy things up ready for the new season. Continue reading
Of all the soft fruits that we have in our fruit cage, one stands out as exceptional: the Japanese wineberry. In common with a great many fruits that carry the word ‘berry’ in their common name, this is not actually a berry but an aggregate fruit consisting of many drupelets, like a common raspberry or blackberry. It is closely related to the raspberry, both species in the Rubus subgenus Idaeobatus. Continue reading
In our fruit cage we have four beds of raspberries, one each of early, mid, and late season summer fruiting sorts, and one for autumn fruiting varieties. Each is around 9 by 5 feet, with a double row planted down the centre, around 2 feet apart. Some already have strawberries along the outside edge and all of them are intended to have them in due course. The raspberries vary in vigour but some of them are quite rampant, spreading out to take over the area reserved for the strawberries. Something needed to be done to keep them under control. Continue reading