grow your own fruit

Having said that I must get my skates on and order another cherry tree before it was too late I actually did so a few days ago, and this morning it arrived.  That is the slight trouble with bare root stuff, once you've got it you have to get on and plant it.  The arrival of the cherry forced me to get on with sorting out the mess in the fruit cage, which had got a bit weedy.  Most of the weeds pulled out easily enough, but there is some couch grass running around.  I extracted as much as possible by hand, but will probably end up treating the regrowth with glyphosate.  I'm very sparing in my use of this weedkiller, but would find it hard to do without it entirely.  The cherry is 'Summer Sun' which is a dessert variety generally described as doing well even in an indifferent English summer, so with any luck that will guarantee either cherries or a fantastic summer in a year or three.  It's on Colt rootstock, which in theory will produce a larger tree than I would want for a fruit cage, but on our miserable light soil I've found it pays to go for more vigorous rootstocks than you would think you wanted.  As I weeded around the fruit I was shocked at how sandy and mere the earth appeared, as if it had never received an application of organic material in its life.  There is one bin of compost ready to use, so that will go on.

I ordered a plum at the same time, 'Marjorie's Seedling', which should bear dark purple dual purpose plums in late September.  There's already a golden plum that's ready to pick in the first half of August, so the plan was to extend the season.  This is on St Julien A, and again I'm not expecting it to grow as large as the RHS guidelines suggest it will.  Unfortunately, having seen the plant, I'm not entirely expecting it to grow at all, as it doesn't appear to have any leaf buds.  Normally buying mail order from reputable suppliers works well.  I'm trying to contact the grower, and I expect it will all be sorted out one way or another, but it is a hassle.

While I was at it I went for some more raspberries, which are receiving mega doses of compost as I plant them, but half are still heeled in as the light ran out.  The challenge this year will be to try and prevent raspberry beetle destroying a sizeable proportion of the crop.  Last year I was throwing away half of what I picked, which is disheartening and makes picking a faff as you have to inspect each fruit.  It also makes it difficult to enjoy eating them as you wonder at every mouthful if your inspection failed and this one will be off.  The grubs live in the core of the raspberry, then move into the flesh, and the taste of fruit which has been attacked is vile.  The RHS only offers chemical controls so goodness knows how organic raspberry growers manage.

My cheerful reflections the other week on how economical it is to grow your own fruit did overlook the cost of buying the plants, plus the fruit cage.  Our fruit cage has suffered after two snowy winters.  Gardening books always say to remove netting roof from fruit cage in case of snow, but how often do we have that much snow in Essex?  After the first winter it was possible to bend the aluminium top bars back so that the cage was servicable, though wonky, but they wouldn't bend back a second time without breaking.  Sourcing replacements and fitting them is another job for the spring.  On a positive note, during the stock take at work I did discover we had a supply of angle irons for sale, and I shall get a few of those to make supports for the raspberries.  First time round we used tree stakes, but these have rotted and I'd prefer not to replace them with more stakes that will rot again.