Pick Your Own Fruit…In November
Cold weather and raspberry ripples!
What better way of spending your day off than pruning fruit bushes at the end of November? My fruit cage is 20ft by 10ft with red gooseberries trained along the back, red, white and black currant bushes in the middle and raspberry canes towards the front. To the left are autumn raspberries which despite the cold weather and onset of December are still producing fruit!
The best job of all is training the blackberry bushes which enclose the kitchen garden into some sort of order. If I don’t manage to shred all of my skin by myself then the driving wind and rain finishes the job. Feeling like a pin cushion I tackle the gooseberries, these produce fantastic fruit each year and the colour of the red variety is stunning and far more interesting than the standard ‘goosegog’.
Last month I transplanted my Laxton apple tree which I am training into an espalier (the branches are trained along horizontal wires) which should make the area in front of the first polytunnel more aesthetically pleasing. I have taken on a particularly fine cherry tree which shall be given a winter medical next weekend. The ground in between the fruit bushes has been dug over and will, with the grace of a friendly tree feller be covered in a liberal covering of wood chippings.
Most remarkable of all though is the fact that I can still pick soft fruit less than a week before December. Below is a photograph of my autumn cropping raspberry canes which I took yesterday. I don’t know if this is testament to good gardening, luck or a reversal of weather patterns but whatever the reason it’s the last gasp of autumn.
Miles,
How marvellous and what hard work, but worth it I’ve no doubt. Sometimes I wonder if there wasn’t so much work inside my place would I get stuck into the garden more… superficially perhaps, heavy digging in my purple rubber booties seems unwise
The latest thing to interest me is garden lighting, a subject I have thrown myself into with great gusto… I shall report back when the task is complete.
Cid
November 26, 2007 @ 12:41 pm
Miles,
Great photo and post. Talking of strange weather patterns and fruit, I picked 3 wild strawberries of one of my plants. They just don’t stop flowering. I envy you the cherry tree and will be available to help come harvesting time. Speed will be of the essence as birds love them just the same.
November 26, 2007 @ 1:36 pm
Cid,
Having just cut some of my shrubs back I’ve rediscovered my garden lights!
Miles
November 26, 2007 @ 2:09 pm
Elsie,
The cherry tree is suitably protected from the birds, have no fear of that!
Miles
November 26, 2007 @ 2:10 pm