Growing Soft Fruit - A Short Guide to the Most Common Soft Fruits

No allotment or vegetable patch should be without soft fruit. As well as epitomising all that is summer with their abundance of juicy berries, they make a very versatile crop to eaten in season or stored in various ways to be enjoyed over the winter months. Who can resist a handful of freshly picked raspberries on your morning cereal or a delicious blackcurrant jam. Here are some handy tips on growing and getting the best out of a few of the most common soft fruit varieties.

Blackberries

If you don't have the time to roam the hedgerows for wild blackberries in autumn, then have a go at growing a few canes yourself. Modern domestic varieties of blackberry tend to bear larger fruit than their wild counterparts and are more disease resistant. Blackberries are easy to grow and will clamber over a large trellis, tall fence or north facing wall. They produce on average about 4.5kg of fruit per plant per season and will last for many years. A favourite variety of mine is Blackberry 'Loch Tay' which grows on short upright canes and is therefore suitable for smaller gardens. It has the added bonus of being thornless.

Blackberries are simple to grow. Fresh young canes appear in summer. Tie them to which ever support you are using, taking care to remove any weak tips. Blackberries fruit on the previous year's growth, so you need to cut out last year's growth that has borne fruit right down to the base of the plant. Feed you blackberry canes with a fertiliser or compost in February and harvest the fruit between July and October.

You might also like to try loganberries which were introduced around 200 years ago by crossing blackberries with raspberries. Growing principles are the same as blackberries. There is also a thornless variety of loganberry you can buy.

Gooseberries

Gooseberries are one of the first of the soft fruits to be harvested - around the end of May to late July. There are many varieties of gooseberry bush available, with fruit varying in colour from greenish-yellow to red. A good green variety is 'Invicta' which crops twice as heavily as most other varieties and is resistant to mildew. A good red variety is 'Pax'. Also resistant to mildew, this desert variety has virtually spine-free canes.

To produce a good crop of fruit on a gooseberry bush, the aim is to build up flowering spurs on old wood. You are aiming for an upright bush with an open shape to reduce the risk of your arms being shredded by the sharp spines. As a general rule, prune a gooseberry bush between November and March.

Blackcurrant

Perhaps my favourite of all soft fruits, blackcurrants are great for pies, jams and even winemaking. A particularly sweet variety is 'Ebony' which is good enough to eat straight from the bush! Blackcurrant bushes fruit on last year's growth, so when pruning, cut the shooting branches back to a strong shoot. Feed with compost or fertiliser in February or March and harvest the fruit July to August.

Other currant bushes you might like to try are redcurrants and whitecurrants. The growing principles are the same as for blackcurrants.

Raspberry

Raspberries are normally supported on a post and wire fence. New canes need to be cut back to about 30cm from the ground. In subsequent years, cut down last year's fruiting canes to ground level. Feed with potash in early spring and harvest summer varieties from June to July, autumn varieties from August to October. Raspberries need plenty of water if they are to produce a good heavy crop. Try 'Valentina' for a sweet early variety or 'Autumn Treasure' for a later variety.

Strawberries

Although strawberries need no pruning, they can be a bit more demanding than other soft fruits to grow. Strawberries produce runners which can be cut off and propagated to produce new plants. Feed the plants with potash in January and harvest the fruit between May and October, depending on the variety.

Strawberries are prone to a number of pests and diseases, so it is best not to grow them on the same patch of ground for more than a few years at a time. Strawberries are also a favourite for birds and mice, so you will need to use some form of protection such as netting or cages. A well known and reliable variety to try is 'Cambridge Favourite'.

Soft fruit can be grown and enjoyed by anyone. There are compact varieties of most soft fruits for those with only small gardens and varieties that look both attractive and are also productive. They don't have to be confined to the allotment or vegetable patch, as most varieties can be grown in garden planters on a patio, or in mixed borders where they will happily co-exist with other garden plants.

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Growing Jalapeno Peppers: An Overwintering Guide

It's a common misconception that Jalapeno plants and other peppers are annual, which means they only grow for one year. The fact is that chili plants can survive for five, ten or even fifteen years, provided you take care of them when winter approaches. This means you don't have to throw away your old plants and start new pepper seeds each year. When you perform certain precautions and understand how to support your chillies as they go into hibernation, you successfully "winterize", or "overwinter", pepper plants to make sure they keep producing lots of chillies during the next growing season.

When to Overwinter Peppers
Peppers do not have a tolerance for frost, and they can suffer when they are regularly exposed to temperatures under 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The first thing you should do is figure out when the cold weather is coming to your area. Check weather reports to find out when temperatures are going to dip below 50 degrees for more than a few days, or buy a farmer's almanac to get historical weather information for your location.

Perform the Winterizing Process
Ideally, you want to move your chili plants indoors during the colder months. This protects peppers from frost and keeps them safe from outdoor elements, such as rain and snow, that can kill the plant. Before you bring the chillies inside, you want to make sure you don't take in any bugs as well.

First, use a pair of clean shears to cut off all of the leaves and any immature peppers until bare. This allows your chile plants to save their precious energy for next spring. If pepper buds form during the winter months, pinch them off.

Next, change out the soil in your pepper pots to replenish the mix and get rid of any insects in the soil. If your Jalapenos are in the ground, carefully dig them up and plant them in large 5-gallon pots. Water each pot well.

Continue to debug each plant before you place them indoors. Spray an insecticidal soap over all parts of each plant, including the top of the soil, until each part is drenched. After five minutes, spray your chile plants with water to wash them off. Move your pots to an isolated area, such as a patio, and check on your plants the next day to make sure you don't see any bugs. If you do see them, repeat the insecticidal soap process. After a couple of days of no bug activity, you can bring your plants indoors.

Where to Keep Your Indoor Peppers
Winterized chile plants like a temperature range of 60 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit and they require a light source to survive during the winter. Garages, basements and spare rooms are an ideal location for your plants. Keep in mind that bugs can still appear, so put your chillies in a spot that is the least intrusive to your home. If the room does not have a bright window, you can position grow lights or fluorescent bulbs above the plants.

Watering and Fertilizing Your Winterized Chillies
Your hibernating pepper plants don't need as much water as when they are actively growing in the outdoors. You can hydrate your plants once a month or when the soil mix dries out. Fertilizer is not necessary during this time, but if you choose to feed your plants, use 1/2 the dose you normally use when your plants are outside.

Dealing with Insects on Indoor Plants
Bugs, such as aphids, can sometimes show up on your indoor chillies, despite all of the precautions you've taken. If they make an appearance, place your pepper pots in a shower and let the water run over them for a few minutes. This should dislodge them and wash them away. If the insects keep appearing, release ladybugs on your plants.

Placing Pepper Plants Back Outside
When temperatures consistently go back up to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, you can move them outside again. This is generally during the months of March or April, but check the weather reports for your area to be sure.

Once your chili plants are outdoors again, they will grow back their leaves and develop new flowers.

If you enjoyed these tips about growing Jalapeno peppers, please go to http://www.growhotpeppers.com/grow-your-own-jalapenos-and-super-hot-peppers-in-containers-e-book/ for more information.

Dominica Esperanza writes for http://www.growhotpeppers.com/, a site dedicated to the practice and enjoyment of growing hot pepper plants.

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Practical Guide On How To Organic Garden

A lot of the information I read on how to organic garden seems to get way more technical than is necessary to grow your own food in your back yard. Yes, raised beds and hoop houses are great, but if someone is just starting with this gardening thing it can be overwhelming.

If you feel like you barely have time to plant a garden you may give up before you start if you think you have to build trellis', neat little garden fences and just right garden paths. All that looks good in the pictures, but it is not necessary to feed your family.

What do you need to get started?

To start a garden you will need dirt. Makes sense doesn't. Actually, you will need a plot in your yard that is in the sun most of the day, does not sit in the lowest part of the yard where it will be wet all the time and will add to looks of your yard, not distract.

If you do not have a friend with a rototiller, there is an easy way to get your organic garden started. It is best to start the fall before the spring you plan to plant your garden.

Stake out your garden plot and cover the ground with several layers of newspapers, better than throwing them in the trash. Wet these down with water and cover with an old blanket, carpet, or leaves from the yard, whatever, to keep the paper in place and not allow any light to get onto the soil below.

What we want to do is kill all the grass in our garden plot so we will not have to fight with it for two or three more years. Trust me, grass has a strong will to survive.

When spring arrives

Early in the spring, long before you are ready to plant, remove the newspaper and whatever is covering it. Keep the paper if it has not decomposed and use it later for mulch. The reason is, if you do not remove the covering the soil will not dry out until the middle of summer and will be hard to work with.

As soon as the soil dries enough to turn over without making clods it is time to begin getting your hands dirty. Either, have that friend with the rototiller come by, or get out the trusty shovel (I really prefer a good garden fork) and spade up the soil. If you spade the garden, give it a few rain falls to loosen the soil before planting.

Finish soil prep

If you do not have a compost pile started you will need to purchase a few bags of compost from your local garden center. Put about an inch of compost on the surface of the garden and work into the top of the soil. Now you are ready to plant.

If you follow the above advice you can learn how to organic garden in your back yard, and then, you can start to add all the other features as you grow with your organic garden.

Pick up a free organic gardening newsletter just by clicking here now. A website that has more info can be found at http://solutionsfororganicgardening.com/

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