There are also cape gooseberries and gooseberries that you may well enjoy.<\/p>\n
I have to say raspberries are by far my favourite, and while I have friends who grow enough to freeze, I love to graze while working in the garden. <\/p>\n
Finding those ripe little gems is my reward for the weeding that needs to be done! <\/p>\n
And what I like even more is that you can get two fruitings from most varieties.<\/p>\n
But beware of birds who think we grow them for them alone; you may need to throw the odd bit of bird netting over your berries when in full production.<\/p>\n
Raspberries <\/p>\n
The dark raspberry canes have fruited and should be removed; the pale ones left for the next season\u2019s fruiting. Photo \/ Phil Thomsen <\/p>\n
They like to have moist, cool conditions, rich, well-fed soil and good drainage.<\/p>\n
These canes are vigorous, and when planting new canes, space them out about 40cm along the row. <\/p>\n
They will grow to about 1m to 1.5m, depending on the variety.<\/p>\n
Now, you can get yourself into a mess if you don\u2019t keep these canes under control! <\/p>\n
You need to thin out the naturally occurring suckers that pop up around the root base.<\/p>\n
When fruiting is finished, remove each cane at the base and allow the young suckers to replace them. <\/p>\n
Space them out about one every 12cm.<\/p>\n
To clarify, the old canes will be dark and need to be removed, whereas the new ones will be light golden in colour.<\/p>\n
I try to have some order with my berries, so I support them with bamboo placed horizontally to act as support, or you could use wire.<\/p>\n
Because most varieties fruit late spring and late summer, after the spring crop, remove the fruited canes, as this will allow new canes to develop for the summer crop.<\/p>\n
Blueberries<\/p>\n
Blueberries prefer acidic soil, so keep lime far away. <\/p>\n
If you need to increase your soil acidity, apply some sulphur. <\/p>\n
They like to be kept moist, so mulching around the plants is a good idea.<\/p>\n
The berries are produced on one-year-old wood, so when pruning, remove old wood while maintaining the shape and size of the bush.<\/p>\n
Currants<\/p>\n
Currants have a few different habits compared to their berry counterparts.<\/p>\n
They do like moist, fertile soil, but they also need a whack of winter to initiate the flower buds that are going to produce that gorgeous fruit.<\/p>\n
Shallow-rooted, they like a good dollop of mulch on top to keep those roots cool and damp.<\/p>\n
Classed as more of a small shrub than a cane fruit, black currants fruit on one-year-old wood, so thin out any fruited wood to let the new boys on the block through, ready for the following season.<\/p>\n
The red currant differs from its brother as its fruit is produced from longer-lived spurs, and all that is needed to a good tidy up of any old wood to let new growth flourish. <\/p>\n
I have to say, red currant jelly is superb!<\/p>\n
Brambles<\/p>\n
Blackberries and boysenberries are a couple of the forms of brambles, whereas a loganberry is a cross between a bramble and a raspberry; a little confusing, I know, so just go on taste! <\/p>\n
Naturally thorny, it is so good that thornless varieties are now available. <\/p>\n
While they prefer cool conditions, they are pretty hardy and adaptable in most places. <\/p>\n
If you think about where wild blackberries pop up, they certainly are tough!<\/p>\n
You do need to keep your plants watered when the fruit is ripening, as it will help with better fruiting.<\/p>\n
These canes grow quite long, so plant about 2m apart. <\/p>\n
They are usually heavy croppers, so they would appreciate their stems being supported.<\/p>\n
Berries are produced on one-year-old wood, so after fruiting, cut canes down to ground level, and remove any excess suckers as well.<\/p>\n
As much as we dislike pruning, it is necessary if we want some of those beautiful fruit jewels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are also cape gooseberries and gooseberries that you may well enjoy. I have to say raspberries are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2851,8593,138,8590,2841,337,2065,8589,8597,8594,8596,8587,8592,111,139,69,8595,8588,8591,6180,2889,1961,3765,61,686,8598,1965],"class_list":["post-6730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-also","tag-berry","tag-business","tag-cane","tag-country","tag-features","tag-fruit","tag-garden","tag-gardener","tag-harvest","tag-keen","tag-kem","tag-maximise","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ormond","tag-ormonds","tag-pruning","tag-shes","tag-tackling","tag-this","tag-tips","tag-to","tag-week","tag-worst","tag-writer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}