Doing the soft fruit season

by Alan Titchmarsh

If you’re new to soft fruit-growing, the best tip I can give you is stay at home for the summer. The picking season starts any time now, and if you’ve grown a full range of species, you’ll have your work cut out gathering, freezing and baking.

The strawberry season started early this year thanks to the unseasonally mild dry April, and the first small tart green gooseberries will be ready for picking now, with raspberries and red and white currants coming on stream in another 2 or 3 weeks.

In July they’ll be joined by blueberries, blackcurrants, plump sweet dessert gooseberries and the first raspberries, loganberries and Tayberries. Come August cultivated blackberries will be in full flow and autumn-fruiting raspberries will just be getting into gear; you’ll still be picking both well into October, if the weather stays fair.

But don’t imagine you’ve got fruit-growing in the bag now that the end result is in sight. There are a few hurdles still to be cleared.

Your family won’t be the only ones with their eyes on the feast ahead. Birds get up a lot earlier in the morning, and they’re happy to eat berries a shade underripe – so it’s vital to protect crops with netting. To avoid trapping birds by the legs (which maims them or leaves them easy meat for predators), invest in some good quality, thick, heavy-duty bird netting instead of the cheap flimsy stuff.

Set your nets out over bushes and canes when the developing berries have swelled up almost to full size but while they are still green. But don’t merely drape the netting over the plants – birds are crafty; they’ll simply sneak in underneath or they’ll sit on top and stick their beaks through the mesh.

No, rig some bamboo canes up as a support cage round individual plants or over a whole row or round individual plants, and hang the netting over that, then hold the edges down with a few stones. If you net fruit before it starts to ripen, birds won’t be half so inquisitive.

But fair’s fair; when you’ve had the pick of the crop, uncover the plants and let the birds clear the last few fruit, which are usually small and second best. Since there’s no need to cover all of your fruit garden at once, you can make the same few nets go round several sets of plants in succession, as their crop starts ripening.

The other problem – and just as serious in its way, is rain. Too much, and ripening soft fruit rots turning into balls of fluffy grey mould or slimy black goo almost overnight. Too little, and fruit fails to swell up so it’s small and hard, with a very poor yield. In a wet season it’s more important than ever to get out picking every day, so nothing is left dangling out in the elements any longer than necessary once it’s ready to pick.

A dry spell, just when soft fruits are swelling, can, however, be remedied by watering regularly, making sure the plants get a good soak so the water permeates down to root-depth. (To avoid waste, especially if there’s a hosepipe ban or you’re carting cans of water from a rainwater butt, ‘funnel’ water straight to the roots using a soft drinks bottle with the bottom cut off, sunk into the soil alongside each plant).

Oh, there’s something to do almost daily in the fruit garden all summer, but what a great feeling you’ll have when all is safely gathered in.