Arguably the most delicious of all our native berries the desire for a productive Raspberry plot led me to dig in several bare root canes last year. Unfortunately the mistakes made with the planting depth and incorrect pruning leaving my collection of canes in an unenviable state.
The distinction between Summer and Autumn fruiting canes was clearly lost on me as I chopped several bushes down to the ground after fruiting in July only to discover that Summer canes fruit on growth from the previous year. And for no reason I can recall I opted to leave several canes, that I later discovered were Autumn fruiting unchecked.
Despite five of the plants growing on to crop (they are supposed to be one of the best low-maintenance of the fruiting plants) I was disappointed with the number of berries. Either they need to establish a good root system before fruiting handfuls of berries or the planting depth wasn’t right. That said, I have plans to lift and replant the fruiting area of my L shaped raised bed but wonder if this would disturb the roots?
Undeterred I’m going to order a few more Autumn fruiting canes (likely to be the Autumn Bliss variety), prepare supports where necessary and start again. Possibly because I’m impatient for a garden task to lose an hour to or rather it’s likely to be far more enjoyable experience than say, sorting the mess of the compost heap or the despondent clearing of the pigeon-pecked cauliflower seedlings. And this time I’m going to label them clearly.
I waited until they betrayed themselves. In the past fortnight hundreds of green sentinels had stabbed up through the soil’s winter skin. In a few weeks time the whole embankment would be a mess of fleshy leaves but now the fingers of bright, base green grouped in clumps made it easy to spot where to dig.
I love this type of gardening; A simple, repetitive task and my progress immediate and obvious, laid out before me. I took to the slope with a two forks and a trug. Expecting to yank out the bluebells whole with the minimum of fuss I was surprised to find how deep the colonies were rooted. I was pulling up fistfuls of the white balls but getting down to their layer wasn’t easy. The bulbs squeaked and ripped if my fork pushed into the pulp, I pushed and prised open the ground and then took to my knees and used my hand fork to scrape and dig down.
Bare earth beneath the apple trees.
I chucked the stems and bulb waste into the trug that I dragged around with me and when this was full I tipped the mass into one of the large garden waste square bags. I’ve found these to be really useful in all of my heavy garden clearance work. I can heave and drag the scratchy plastic bags down steps and over the ground, only one has torn to date.
Hours later the orchard bank was a mess of overturned soil with several deep pockets where I hadn’t smoothed over or filled in with spoil but satisfyingly there were no bluebell shoots.
I’ve lifted the woven clods of loam that were slung on the new raised beds and raked out the excess soil. From the four lines of garlic sown in early November only three plants survived the five day build project. The construction of the new raised bed – a chunky ‘L’ shape now taking up half the top garden and laying of paving was less intrusive as I feared but there is still plenty to clear up and prepare for the planting season. At least I’ve started – making good use of this mild tail end to Febraury – Incredible to think that only a fortnight ago I was hacking away the inches of crusted, icy snow from our steps.
Last year I stalled early on as I struggled with first finding the time and then the gumption necessary to construct my greenhouse. To cap it all I spent too long deliberating over the layout and materials of the vegetable garden settling for a half-hearted attempt to cover the grass with bark and some shoddy square beds. The grass grew through the chippings all too quickly and the beds, whilst functional were never loved – looking as if they were dropped on the ground and not grown out from it.
I’ve started to dig in manure and rake over to remove the larger stones but the vegetable bed isn’t the only area that calls for attention. I have to make a start on the culling of the Spanish Bluebell horde before they riot through the the garden. Then there is the pond and it’s unloved, rose and fern bank surround, the tired and worn grass square, another L-shaped bed empty save for clay and weeds and finally I’d like to cut the grass verge near the roadside to neat, clipped edge. And for that I’m going to invest in a new tool – An edging spade.
