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Don’t try to grow them from seeds. You grow redcurrant, blackcurrant, jostaberry, gooseberry, and blueberries on young bushes bought from a garden centre, in the autumn. You only need about 1 square metre for each of these. The young plants are small but they will grow to fill this space.
All you have to do is keep the weeds down, pick the fruit when it’s ready (end May, June, July, Aug), prune the bushes as necessary and give some organic fertiliser in the autumn. You will get enough berries to feed a family of 4 and plenty more to freeze or make jam.
Loganberries and raspberries grow on canes also obtainable from garden centres. One loganberry will grow along a fence or wall ( it needs about 3 to 4 metres length) and will give you tons of delicious fruit from its second year. Six autumn-fruiting (not summer-fruiting) raspberry canes planted in a row will give you plenty of raspberries that will be ready in August to October, when the other fruits are nearly finished. There is really no need to buy imported soft fruit. It all grows really well in Ireland. The expensive thing about growing it commercially is paying someone to pick it, and getting it to market while it’s still fresh. So they are picked unripe and put in plastic punnets to prevent squashing. Do it yourself. Pick when they are truly ripe: the flavour is unbelievable. They will be as fresh as the time it takes you to run from your garden to your kitchen. It’s an enjoyable task and saves your money and health.
Intervals of clouds and sun
Max: 9 °C
Min: 1 °C
Mostly cloudy with a shower in places
Max: 10 °C
Min: 6 °C
Mostly cloudy and increasingly windy
Max: 11 °C
Min: 5 °C
REPLIES
So why exactly do we import???
simples,Cheaper to buy
Unfortunately buying fresh berries is expensive- trust me I’d rather have fresh Irish berries but I can’t afford it. Plus having a bag of them in the freezer is so handy for making smoothies etc. Which I have been doing for the past 2 weeks so I really hope that I’ve escaped this!
Not always the easiest to find unfortnately
can we actually grow our own and then freeze them?
I love them in a berry smoothie, nice and cold this weather better than fresh from the fridge smoothie goes warm too quickly!, uh oh…!!
I literally bought a tub last night for the same reason, and had a smoothie for breakfast. Wish I ahd read this yesterday:(
Growing your own berries is easy, and the bushes are widely available and inexpensive. I grow blackcurrants, blueberries and raspberries with minimum effort – just keep them watered. You can use pots if you don’t have a garden or space to plant. The blueberries thrive in the pot, and so do strawberries though I’ve never grown them myself. They are delicious, not to mention the satisfaction of having grown them yourself. I’ve also frozen them and they taste lovely.
Where do you buy the seeds? That’s something I’d like to do…
I have most types of berries and currants growing but you would need some size of freezer to keep a years supply :-) Use the surplus to make wine, chutnies or jam [ if you really have to ] Lidl and Aldi both do fruit bushes of very good quality and the 10 strawberry plugs I bought 2 seasons back are now 25 and will be 50 in a few weeks time as they send out very vigorus suckers. They all do well in containers of at least 25 litre capacity [ you can even get mini-apple trees] but they will need to be covered with nets when the fruit is ripe as the birds love them too :-)
I bought a plum tree and an apple tree in Lidl many years ago and both going strong and yielding lovely fruit.
Bought the raspberry, blueberry and blackcurrant bushes in 2 different garden centres. I think the most I paid was 15 quid for one, and a lot of places do deals – buy one get one half price, that kind of thing.
Unfortunately I’ve never gotten anything like a year’s supply Morticia so no probs on the freezer capacity front :-), but freezing them does make them last a while anyway.
You should buy a grow bag like strawberry growers use. They give great crops
@Martin, grow bags are good too, most are about 40 litres and you can grow tomatoes and other goodies in them. Use a liquid feed suited to what you are growing and not poo no matter what it’s nationality :-)
Oh, i’m going to give that a try Tokidoll.
Don’t try to grow them from seeds. You grow redcurrant, blackcurrant, jostaberry, gooseberry, and blueberries on young bushes bought from a garden centre, in the autumn. You only need about 1 square metre for each of these. The young plants are small but they will grow to fill this space.
All you have to do is keep the weeds down, pick the fruit when it’s ready (end May, June, July, Aug), prune the bushes as necessary and give some organic fertiliser in the autumn. You will get enough berries to feed a family of 4 and plenty more to freeze or make jam.
Loganberries and raspberries grow on canes also obtainable from garden centres. One loganberry will grow along a fence or wall ( it needs about 3 to 4 metres length) and will give you tons of delicious fruit from its second year. Six autumn-fruiting (not summer-fruiting) raspberry canes planted in a row will give you plenty of raspberries that will be ready in August to October, when the other fruits are nearly finished. There is really no need to buy imported soft fruit. It all grows really well in Ireland. The expensive thing about growing it commercially is paying someone to pick it, and getting it to market while it’s still fresh. So they are picked unripe and put in plastic punnets to prevent squashing. Do it yourself. Pick when they are truly ripe: the flavour is unbelievable. They will be as fresh as the time it takes you to run from your garden to your kitchen. It’s an enjoyable task and saves your money and health.