Growing Fruit

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Permalink Reply by ds1w on January 15, 2009 at 5:21pm

sorry, no help here. i'd assume you need a good permanent location for the blueberries and raspberries, at least, but I could be wrong

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Permalink Reply by alan Lott on January 17, 2009 at 5:56am

i 've read that you can grow blueberries and raspberries in the greenhouse. I don't know were i read it. alan

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Permalink Reply by John on January 15, 2009 at 5:33pm

With regards to strawberries, you'll need some good fertile, free draining soil. Once your plants are in mulch them with straw and cover with netting to keep the birds off. Slugs will be your greatest enemy though as they wait for the biggest ripest strawberries to munch on.

Blueberries need a sheltered spot, away from strong wind and prefer an acidic soil.

Raspberries will pretty much grow anywhere and fruit well if you give them a good feed early in the spring and keep them weed free. The spring fruiting ones tend to be sharper in flavour with the Autumn (fall) ones being sweeter.

Hope that is of some help.

John

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Permalink Reply by Chad on January 15, 2009 at 6:22pm

All of those are fairly easy to grow. Blueberries prefer acidic soil, but do OK up to neutral. They also can handle places where the soil gets a little, well, swampy, occassionally (though not all the time!).

Biggest difficulty with strawberries (assuming you are starting from transplants), is you have to be careful to plant them at the right depth. Too deep, and they'll rot away. Too shallow, they'll die outright or not produce much. The difference between the two seems (for me anyway) to be about 1/4". You want to make sure the crown is right at soil level. If you buy several plants, though, it's not such a big deal. For example, I planted 24 last year. About 10 died. But, by letting the runners root, the remaining 14 plants have created an absolutely solid, impenetrable mat in their bed. A lot of people do a lot of work keeping plants from sending out runners, then have to dig up their plants every several years and replace them, as they slow production greatly. I figure - let 'em put out runners, then just remove the original plants when their production slows, letting their offspring take their place.

Eric has a video in the GardenFork section on transplanting raspberries. I've harvested lots of wild raspberries, but not planted any of my own. But his video makes them look pretty simple.

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Permalink Reply by Byron Dupin on January 16, 2009 at 12:18pm

Guys I really appreciate your input and value your wisdom! I'll make a note to get these things lined out.

(John) as far as the slugs go I think I have that one licked. I'm going to use raised beds and put copper pipe around the top lip of each bed. I know that Slugs usually will not cross copper (I'm not sure why).

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Permalink Reply by John on January 17, 2009 at 2:58pm

I think the copper gives them the tiniest electric shock, though they seem to get past mine fairly regularly. I'm trying Nematodes this year. I'll let you know how I get on with them.

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Permalink Reply by Paige on January 17, 2009 at 6:22pm

My only experience here is with strawberries and blueberries. I haven't dedicated space to stawberries, and grow them in a shallow hanging basket. They don't produce a tremendous yield, but they do pretty well and for me it's solved the soil depth problem which I've often heard is an issue. Blueberries take a few years to start producing well, so don't get discouraged if you don't have much fruit the first two years. Once your blueberry bush is established, it's best to keep it covered with netting once the fruit starts to set to keep the birds off.

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