What are your favourite fruit bushes?

[SalviaOfficinalis]

I want to dedicate a small flower bed (3m) to growing soft fruit.

It’s south facing with a brick outhouse wall behind the flower bed. Clayish soil but not too wet as it’s in a partial rain shadow due to outhouse.

Hoping to fit 3 fruit bushes in. Recommendations for compact, preferably thornless, high yield fruit brushes would be much appreciated.

Thinking more raspberries/blackberries/hybrids rather than currants.

I got mine today but there was only one blackcurrant. Had to stop by a different one on the way home (yes, yes, I know my life is fascinating, what can I say I am skint) and they had none. So I will have to now go back to the first one tomorrow for the gooseberry. Hopefully not sold out!

I'd recommend blueberry, raspberry, strawberry, blackcurrant and rhubarb. They will be easy to fruit once its established itself for about two years. All need some good amount of sun. Best to buy rhubarb from a pot, not in those bags where you can get them for a couple of quid (or from the pound shop) as they usually need to be snapped up within a day or two of being inside a warm shop environment, and they'll send up shoots prematurely (which will then die as the plant will need time to set down roots before growing new shoots). A lot of these plants are just a single, spindly bit of stem with not much root system attached. So, they're not the best choice to buy them.

Once you have these established (with regular watering in the dry, warm months) and feeding, you'll end up with strong healthy plants which will reward you in years to come.

Join a FB gardeners' group, you could ask on there for spare raspberry canes, strawberry runners or a chunk of rhubarb.

jostaberries are amazing - a cross between a gooseberry and a blackcurrant. Delicious and very easy to grow.

Look up dwarf fruit trees too. I have a dwarf apple that is very tidy and I get a few apple tarts and crumbles out of it in Autumn

Yes, it’s a good way as you can buy from a specialist fruit nursery and get a better choice of varieties

Half my allotment is fruit, on heavy clay, and I would say that the rhubarb, dwarf quince tree and and blackcurrant 'big ben' are the best for taste and heavy cropping. I'm still using blackcurrant cordial I bottled last June, and 'big ben' has huge berries like marbles so they're easier to pick and sweeter than normal blackcurrants. Because they're strongly flavoured you only need a few to transform a dish. I freeze a big bag of them and bottle the rest as cordial/syrup. I'd recommend buying now bareroot online from a specialist fruit nursery like Pomona Fruits or Blackmoors, I've found both of them really good.

Anyone have any experience or opinions on growing a pink currant in a pot? I got carried away and bought one but don't have a permanent home for it in the ground at the moment.

I have a lovely pink currant, mine's in the ground at the allotment but it's quite compact and I'm sure it would be fine in a big pot. You could grow it as a standard.

Redcurrants are very easy and highly productive. Not easy to find in the supermarkets either.

The crucial considerations are what do you like eating and what do you struggle getting hold of? Personally I can't get enough raspberries so that's a must. I love gooseberries (Xenia is the one we have, it's delicious) and can't get them in the shops. I like blackcurrants but uprooted our redcurrant as I just don't like them so much. We have loads of places for picking blackberries locally so they aren't a priority for me. And I grow strawberries because there's nothing like the taste of a sun-warmed strawberry (Manille is my favourite) straight from the plant. I've had some good plants from pomona fruits.

We really like the Japanese wineberry. Small sweet fruit which the kids eat straight off the canes. It fruits on last year's canes so I tie the new canes in a fan shape to the wall and cut down old canes after fruiting.

Also you could try chillian guava. Evergreen, very prolific with small, sweet, slightly medicinal tasting fruit. I find it's a bit temperamental when planted in the ground (I suspect this is a frost issue) but protected or in pots it does better. if your in a milder part of the country (I'm north Yorkshire) they may work for you.

What do people do with the pink and red currants?

The birds’ favourite.

My choice would be either raspberries or blackcurrants.

You could put both some summer fruiting and some autumn fruiting varieties of raspberries there to maximise your yield.

And maybe some rhubarb at the edge for some spring cropping fruit.

And raspberries are low enough growing that you could consider putting some hanging baskets on the outhouse either for some strawberries or bush-type varieties of cherry tomatoes.

If you do go for raspberries, it's worth trying yellow ones- I thought they would be a bit sour for some reason, but they are much sweeter than red ones. WE can only grow dwarf ones because of the high winds here, but we get a really good crop and they are delicious!

I have some yellow raspberries but find I prefer the red ones - the yellow ones are sweet but to me seem a bit bland and lacking that raspberry tanginess.

I agree with @UnaOfStormhold really don’t rate the yellow raspberries. I wouldn’t plant them again.

Can I ask a stupid question? If your garden gets no sun mid Nov to mid Feb due to high buildings around it, does that rule out buying a dwarf quince tree that says its season is Sep to Dec? I presume it needs sun to ripen the fruit, but also do they actually ripen in December anyway? I’m in Scotland, so v short days in December.

I usually harvest my quince early to mid October, but I am in southern England. Quince needs a long warm growing season so it will depend on your microclimate whether it's feasible. If by mid October you're commonly cool and dreich quince is just going to be a disappointment unfortunately.

I would risk it if you can grow it in your most sheltered and warmest spot and get sun on it till mid October because they are beautiful trees. My quince by no means gets full sun as it's in the shade of a fence and a neighbour's tree (fortunately deciduous and late into leaf). It took about five years to establish and suffered from mildew in dry springs (less likely to affect you in Scotland)

I have one in Yorkshire, 400ft above sea level, frost pocket. Sun in the middle of the day but blocked by buildings/trees morning and evening. Flowers well. Fruit nowhere near as dense as, say, an apple, but enough for my needs. Mine is the popular self fertile Vranja, you may find another variety more suitable.

Thank you both! I might risk it!

I really want a quince now! It's too windy here to even have an apple tree outside though, so it will have to wait until I can afford another polytunnel.

What did you go for? I’m very late to the soft fruit party but coming in to recommend a couple of blackcurrant bushes. Low maintenance, productive after a couple of years and the flavour is out of this world ( jams, jellies, summer pudding, ice cream) . I am not a fan of “ alternative” plants such as yellow raspberries/ thornless blackberries ( bland) , and I’d include blueberries- a few people have tried them on our plot and invariably end up with sad looking, very poorly producing potted plants ( they need ericaceous compost).

I agree - I grow things that are hard to find or expensive in the shops - usually I suspect because they are a pain to pick.

I like blackcurrants, and also make sorbet out of the leaves - it has a taste a bit like muscat grapes.

Gooseberries are a must but I make sure I take cuttings (usually I layer them) because after 3 years I find the sawflies swoop in and I lose them.

Could you plant some wild strawberries around the edge? They fruit all summer, and taste delicious- but you only get a few at a time. I have fragaria vesca Alexandria these at the edge of my fruit plot:

www.victoriananursery.co.uk/Tumbleberries/