Pruning and thinning

That’s better.   All is orderly in the soft fruit orchard.   And it only took the whole morning.

I measured it out and the bed is 13 metres long and three metres wide. In old money that’s about 42 feet of random weeds.

I have dug up three, no four, blackberry plants (heaving for all I was worth on the fork to lever them out of the ground) and have set them aside for Teo.   He ought to be delighted with them.   They have a huge garden and cooler weather, so might get some better value out of them than me.

And I still have a huge number of the blasted plants left.   But they have had a haircut.

And I’ve made sure that I can now get to the large white currant bush at the back of the bed. Before there was a positive assault course between the blackberry tendrils.

And the little gooseberry bushes (a gift from Teo) will now have a bit more growing room. And sunlight.   They survived their first year quite well but were positioned under not one, but two, blackberries.

I’ve also excavated a fair bit of new grass at the far end of the bed near the apple tree to make room for my Christmas purchase. A kiwai plant.   We are too cold in winter to grow kiwi vines, but this relative is supposed to be able to withstand temperatures of minus 25C.

The fruit is much smaller than kiwi fruit (I won’t call them Chinese gooseberries in deference to the clever marketing board of New Zealand who renamed them) but you eat the skin and all and they are apparently delicious.

But like all things in this country garden, there is many a slip between the planting of the fruit bush and the harvesting.

I think I’ve got round the deer problem by aiming to plant it at the very back of the soft fruit bed.   Which means that the animals will have to weave an assault course through the jostaberry and gooseberry bushes to reach the fruit. If they fruit!

And if they do grow as a vine, I’m quite keen to make a small waist high fence to support them and let them grow all along the back of the border.   It will hide the looming brambles that grow out of the bank from the septic tank nicely.