Rich Pickings

Although we are still planting and weeding and generally carrying out the usual maintenance of the plot, the main task at the moment is picking soft fruit.

My fears that the dry weather would mean a poor crop were thankfully unfounded and it seems that most of the soft fruit is conspiring to be ripe at the same time!

Our ancient redcurrant bushes have as usual produced a bumper crop. 

We didn’t buy or even plant the bushes they were planted by the last person to garden the plot and must have been planted well over 20 years ago. Once the plot was vacated it became totally submerged under a mass of weeds, including, bramble, and docks. The whole plot was covered in growth that was above head height and in a moment of madness we rented the plot in an attempt to recover the fruit that we knew was lurking in there somewhere. It was hard going but eventually we not only uncovered the redcurrants but a row of apple cordons, blackcurrant and white currant bushes.

Once rescued the redcurrants have repaid our efforts by fruiting prolifically each year. I don’t think the blackbirds were impressed as they lost what would have been (if they had managed to find them) a cache of juicy red berries.

The redcurrants don’t take much looking after just a bit of pruning of one or two branches that end up trailing on the ground. We also have to make sure we net them as soon as they start to turn red or the blackbirds are straight into them and will soon strip the plants. Interestingly when we have picked enough and remove the net the blackbirds have lost interest.

I usually have the task of picking redcurrants as, being a foot shorter than Martyn, it is easier for me to duck inside the makeshift fruit cage. I strip or cut sprigs of fruit from the plant and then at home we have the sticky, time consuming task of stripping off the currants. Some are then eaten fresh in fruit salads and as we don’t eat jams or jellies most are then bagged and frozen.

I could have spent an entire afternoon picking redcurrants but there were so many other fruits to pick too. I’ll pick more another day!


I had initially thought the jostaberries hadn’t produced much of a crop but it seems that the berries were in hiding until they had ripened. The bushes were loaded.  A few years ago we bought one jostaberry bush which grew rather straggly whilst being kept in the greenhouse before planting so I trimmed it a little and decided to pop the trimmings in as cuttings. They all rooted and so we then had seven bushes which grew really quickly and fruited the year after! 

We gave one of the jostaberry cuttings to our plot neighbour who gave us lots of gooseberry cuttings. These all grew away and are now producing masses of sweet red fruits. Unfortunately we haven’t a clue about the variety. We also have some green gooseberries and a variety called Pax which have yet to start picking.

A couple of years ago we cleared out the blackcurrant bushes originally recovered from this plot, as they had stopped being productive, but I did take a few cuttings. I also took cuttings from the whitecurrant bush as it was planted just where we wanted to erect our greenhouse. I later found out that I had taken them at the wrong time and not used the correct method. Expecting failure we bought more blackcurrant bushes and - you’ve guessed it haven’t you? - all the cuttings grew.

It wasn’t a waste though as the cuttings are only just beginning to produce fruit and as yet only fairly small currants whereas the new bushes are loaded.

Our early, mid season and late raspberries seem to have identity issues as all the varieties seem to be fruiting at the same time along with our purple fruiting Glencoe. 

Glencoe is still producing fairly small berries which although they taste lovely are not what I expected. Does anyone else grow it and if so can I ever expect bigger berries.

The autumn raspberries - Allgold - will hopefully provide us will yellow raspberries later. These are now producing quite a thicket and so I had a break from fruit picking to thin out the canes. I removed any thin straggly canes which should mean that all the plants vigour should go into the stronger canes. It’s the first time I’ve bothered to do this and so time will tell whether it works or not!

Like everyone else, (and maybe a bit later than many of you), we are picking lovely sweet juicy strawberries. The ones from the old beds are producing much smaller fruit now and we are picking them before fully ripened as they are not netted. 

They still taste good and we beat the birds to them this way. As well as their big brothers we are also picking alpine strawberries although these tend to produce larger berries later in the season.

Oh I nearly forgot - we inherited a tayberry too and are also harvesting fruit from that.

We’re having a barbecue with our plot neighbours this afternoon and guess what will feature highly on the menu for dessert?