Pruning Soft Fruit
Chris walks us through properly maintaining soft fruit bushes such as Loganberries and Blackberries in the early season…
Its February, and for me that means finishing off the last of the hedge cutting and making a start on the soft fruit pruning before progressing to the apples and Pears.
Blackberries and Loganberry buds start to swell this month and it is really important to get the pruning completed early as trying to sort out the tangled mess of young canes will usually result in many buds being knocked off if left later.
I like to attack the plant by firstly cutting out from the base all the old fruited canes which are easily identified as they are lighter brown in colour and are usually quite dead at this time of year. Once they are removed it is simply a matter of tying in the darker young canes or in the case of Blackberries, green canes to the support wires.
Once tied in, cut the ends off these canes to fit them to the allotted space, this also tidies the end of the canes up and promotes the growth of lateral shoots which the coming seasons fruit will be borne on. The ideal shape will be to have canes spaced horizontally about 10 inches apart to allow for plenty of air circulation around the fruiting spurs – this helps to reduce grey mould on the fruit should you get a wet season as the fruits can dry out quicker.
A vertical gap should be left up the centre of the plant to temporarily tie in the young canes produced this year which will in turn be tied down to the horizontal next year to fruit. That’s the theory but in practice they are usually so vigorous they soon fill the gap and then go where they want to!
Finally, when order is restored and you get to the base of the plant easily, clean up any fallen leaves which may harbour overwintering aphids/aphid eggs or powdery mildew and compost or assign to the green waste bin.
February is also the best time of year to feed soft fruit, mine get a couple of handfuls of granulated Sulphate of Potash to provide enough soil reserves for good quality fruit and lastly a thick mulch of garden compost or manure which breaks down over a long period and will feed Nitrogen to the young canes whilst keeping the weeds at bay.
Pruning is always the biggest job of the season for both blackberries and loganberries, once that’s done, they are generally trouble free with only the tying in of the young canes needed – you can then look forward to beating the blackbirds to them!
Chris Jones
Based in Shropshire Chris has many years experience both in growing projects of his own and passing on his expert outdoor knowledge to others through growing and gardening societies. Keep an eye on our blog posts and newsletters for his seasonal articles to keep you well informed on all things outdoors.
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