Pots of Fruit

Fruiting Fruit

Yippee!  Our blackcurrants are curranting and our strawberries are berrying.  The raspberries have done their first attempt at fruit this year and it was a great one.  The new canes are already starting to grow flowers in order to provide our second crop of the year in September, roughly.

Here are a few photos to tempt you..

Looking like a vine of tempting fruit.  The blackcurrants seem to stay quite sour and many strange and crazy faces have been pulled while trying them out.  They have a wonderful flavour but I think they might be better blended into a fruit juice or piled into a tart (pie), yum.

The raspberries are very succulent and are wonderful on their own.  They would probably be lovely with some cream but we are always too eager just to eat them immediately rather than planning a particular dish with them.  Maybe next time.

These little fellas always seem luminous when photographed.  They are really bright red and I've decided that the best time to pick them is when there is still a little white left on them.  If you turned this guy around you'd see that the other side was white.  When they go a deeper red they can taste a bit "off".  They go past their best quite quickly, so pick them early.

Our blueberries have fallen off by the way, boohoo, but there is still hope for the physalis..yay.

My New Blog on Healing Horses and People

Well, I haven't been writing too many posts here for the last few weeks because I have been busy starting up a new blog on healing.  It's called Gaia's Horse and it documents some of the healing that I do on horses as well as ideas on how things that I learn from horses can be applied to people.

I hope you go and have a look and tell me what you think!

Pineapples Galore!

Or at least that's what I hope anyway.  I can just barely imagine how nice a home grown pineapple must taste...heaven.  Well, one day I might find out because I have just planted one in our greenhouse in a little pot.  Apparently they take about two years to fruit, if they are in the right growing conditions presumably, but I have patience, so I'll enjoy the wait.

The first thing to do is to buy a pineapple from where ever you can.  Eat it and save the top bit with all the spikey leaves.  Remove all the flesh from around the base of this leafy mass and then leave to dry for about a week.  This is to make sure that the pineapple stump doesn't rot before it sends out roots.  I left mine on the top shelf of the greenhouse and of course forgot about it for about two and a half weeks so it is well and truly dried out now.  Whether or not it's too dry to plant I have no idea and the only way I'll find out is to wait about six months and see if it's successful.  This is how long it takes to root it seems.  God knows why it's so slow but that's the way it is and so I planted my stump in a little pot filled with light garden soil to which I had added some home made garden compost. I watered it carefully and put it at the back of the greenhouse where it will not be disturbed. 
I know very little about how to grow pineapples in Ireland but I know that they need to be some where nice and warm and that's why it is in the greenhouse.  It's in good company anyway, sitting beside an avocado plant that popped up from the compost bin.  I'm not sure if our greenhouse will get hot enough for long enough but I will surely find on something along the way and if this attempt is unsuccessful then I'll try again and then again and again until I get a pineapple.  Imagine.....

Raspberry Cuttings - Rooting in Water

I've been continuing my experiments with rooting fruit cuttings in water and this time it's the turn of the raspberries.  I pulled one up just over two weeks ago from between the big raspberries and I stuck it in the water along with some more alpine strawberry cuttings.  I've never read of propagating raspberries or strawberries this way but I thought, well it works for other plants...So I just waited.  I had almost given up on it when I suddenly noticed two little roots coming out that were about 3 mm long.   That was yesterday and today they are even longer.  The photo on the right is an enlarged view of the little raspberry.  I'll leave it in the water for at least another week to make sure it develops a good set of roots before planting it up. 

Since trying this on the alpine strawberrie sI have read that you should change the water regularly to make sure there is a plentiful supply of dissolved oxygen.

After the success of this cutting I went out to search for more prospective cuttings. Tucked in under some of the raspberries that are planted in the ground I found two contenders.   The reason I'm trying this method of propagation is that I've found it tricky to get the cuttings out without disturbing the parent plant's roots too much.  I'vedug down up to six inches and still  found it hard to get the little fellas out so I have moved onto this idea for now.  Apparently it is also better to pull out the little suckers rather than to cut them out if you are trying to discourage too many new suckers coming up in the future.  Cutting them seems to stimulate new growth of suckers where as pulling them out mustn't. 

So I tugged at these two guys but they broke quite high up the stems rather than below ground as I had hoped.  But I'll still put them in water and see what happens.  I found a tiny little one hidden under another section of canes and this time it came out cleanly with a long white section of stalk that had been below ground.  I'll have to see which ones do better and see if it makes any difference if this bit comes out.

You can see all three suckers here to see what I mean.  The two on the left were broken on the green stem whereas the little one on the right has some white stem on it.

I pulled up some suckers of a different variety of raspberry at my Mums house and they were much easier to pull up.  All of them came up with at least a little bit of root and I could plant them straight away.  This could be because the soil around hers was nice and loose where as I have had to walk along the front of our raspberries, thus compacting the soil over time.  

This method of propagating seems quite easy and I'm going to keep trying with other fruits to see if it works with them.  I'm presuming that this will work best with soft wood cuttings, where the wood is still green.  I'm thinking of trying it on the fig next....

Super Macro Fruit

Chris discovered the other day that his camera can do super macro.  I felt cheated!  All this time I could have been getting closer to the flowers in our garden without them going blurry in the view screen!  I knew about the macro but super macro...yippee.
So I quickly went around getting some shots of our current flowers and baby fruits.

Apparently it's National Strawberry Week in Ireland at the moment and coincidentally we got our first strawberry on Tuesday....heaven.
This tayberry has just lost it's petals and already there seems to be a huge berry forming.  I can't wait to see how big it gets.
 
I always think that fig leaves looks like hands and these look like little boney fingers.
When you can set get really close with the super macro and then zoom in on the computer you can see things that your eye just can't pick out normally.  I never knew that rasberries were so hairy at this stage. 

This raspberry however is just barely opening it's petals to the bees. .

The blackcurrants seem to have dew permanently stuck to them.  I'd love to know what it is...

Mixed Planting

I picked up a book in the new library in Moyross in Limerick last week called "The Edible Container Gardener" by Michael Guerra and it inspired me to come home and immediately start planting up some larger containers with a variety of fruit and other plants.  The book is aimed at people with very small gardens who want to grow loads of food organically.  For some reason it deals quite a lot with planting in the ground but there is a huge emphasis on containers so it is still very useful. 
The main idea that I have gotten out this book so far is the idea of "living soil".  The author states that the soil in small pots cannot really be said to be alive because it can't support a proper balance of insects and microbes (and possibly other things) who would normally do the job of aerating the soil and breaking down debris etc.  The book doesn't seem to explain why this is the case but I can imagine that the ecosystem present in soil needs plenty of room and possibly more constant conditions in order to be successful .  The temperature and amount of water in a small pot will vary more readily than the ground so this may make it hard to build up various colonies of microbes and insects. 

The fact that it is difficult to maintain a living soil in a small container means that normal garden soil is not suitable to use.  Because it isn't filled with enough animals to aerate the soil means that it compacts down too quickly.  This presumably means that the roots of the plant in the container will have a hard time collecting air and water from the soil and so the health of the plant suffers.  So, in a small container it is recommended to use a commercial compost mixed with your own home made compost, manure or something else similar.  But using lightweight composts means that it is harder to retain moisture and nutrients and this has its own problems.

What I got out of this part of the book was that it is a good idea to use large containers where possible.  That way you can use your own garden soil mixed in with your own home made compost.

Another interesting point in the book so far was the idea that you should plant things of different heights in some close proximity to one another.  Within a particular system (a container or a garden) there should be some tall things, some medium things and then some low growing plants.  This is based on the ideas of permaculture and presumably the different plants offer support of some sort to one another.

So I when I came home from looking after our horse I went straight out the back and looked around at what small containers could be incorporated into a larger one.  When I had chosen some plants I waded through our garage until I found a large fish box that would suit the plants I had chosen.  We found this a few years ago on a beach in the West of Ireland and it has been used for salads, tomatoes and other things that I can't remember.  It was decommissioned last year for some reason so I'm glad to get it back in use.
It never occured to me before to plant our fruit in groups and with other edible crops, but when I read this book it suddenly seemed like a perfect idea.  

I chose the following to go in....

• Fruit - Redcurrant, alpine strawberry, cape gooseberry,
• Salads - Spinach, rocket, rainbow chard,
• Herbs - Chives, sage, rosemary,
• Flowers - borage, primrose and snow drops.

In all there are twelve different types of plant in this box and the idea is that there will be a low growing cover that will almost act as a mulch, keeping in moisture and out keeping out weeds.  Then there will be a middle layer which will provide a little shade to the lower down salads which don't like too much sun.  These two layers will also keep the soil a little cooler than it might otherwise be and this suits redcurrants well as far as I know.  The cape gooseberry and the redcurrant will provide some shade too and will also hopefully support each other.  Both are prone to wind damage and so I planted them close enough together so that they will touch when they are a bit bigger and hopefully lessen the effects of wind on each one. 

I chose plants which don't need lots of fertility or too much sun so that they will all be happy in the same place.  Another thing to consider is whether they all want the same nutrients or will they each use a bit of the soil that the other doesn't really need.  This is something I don't know much about but I'll just see how this box goes and hopefully learn from that.  It seems that a mixture of plants may be good from this point of view as well.  If you plant all the one type of crop in this box there will be a larger demand for particular elements of the soil whilst other elements may go unused.

I put in the primrose so that when all the fruit are still waking up from the winter and not doing much there will be some colour in the box.  These are my favourite flowers and so I really just want an excuse to put them everywhere :) .  The snowdrops are for the same reason and there are seven of them.  I'm hoping that the borage will fall down in front of the box and blend it into the garden a bit better. 

The salads are also acting like a catch crop.  At the moment the fruit and herbs are quite small so there is space left between them.  Planting faster growing crops like salads between the slower growing ones means you get more use from your space and you also prevent weeds from having space to set up home.  These salads will get squeezed out later during the summer but I can plant more in the autumn when things are dying back again. 

Here are some pictures of another smaller planting with an alpine strawberry, peppermint, mint, spearmint, rocket, spinach and chard.  The mints might completely overtake the strawberry but again, we'll just have to wait and see. (click on the pictures for larger versions).  I turned my back on the basket that I was getting ready to plant and came back to find that Kaboodle had taken up residence there.  This caused a serious delay in proceedings as she decided to look her cutest and most forlorn so that we wouldn't toss her out.  We did in the end but not before making her an alternative bed from an old wine box.  She loves it....phew.
 

Life on a Fruit Plant

There's a lot more life on a fruit plant than just the leaves (and hopefully berries).  While it has sometimes been frustrating I've actually enjoyed watching the little insects that crawl all over our fruit.  I think I realised today that I'm going to look on all the insects that live with us as friends of a sort.  They are here to stay and they are each incredibly fascinating creatures.  I'm only just beginning to learn about them and their strange habits but I intend to make it my business to learn all about the little animals that we share our garden with.

I think I started to look on them with an interested eye rather than an irritated fruit grower's eye when I spotted two snails mating near the bottom of a strawberry pot.  I had put the pot into soak in some water and was just about to pick them off when I realised what was going on.  Well, how could I interefere with the very creation of life?  I took some photos and then left them in peace.  (If you click on the photos in this post you will see a larger version of each image) I'm sure that the thought of all the little snail eggs that would result would make most people scream but I'll just couldn't help but be pleased to have witnessed such an event. 

Another very interesting garden inhabitant is the ant and we have been watching them very carefully of late.  We are hoping that they won't devastate the cherry and blackcurrants and are waiting to see if they increase to scary numbers.  While watch a little group at the top of a blackcurrant shoot I noticed that there was actually an ant deep inside a blackcurrant flower.  I'm presuming that he was collecting nectar and he stayed in there for a good few minutes.  On looking around I noticed there was another guy doing the same.  Of course it was very hard to take a photo of them but I had a go so you might get an idea of what I saw.  It took about 30 attempts but I finally got him in a fairly good pose.  Ants seem to have incredibly bendy bodies and so this one could curl right up and fit in side ways.  I wish I had one of those tiny cameras that I could send into the flower to see exactly what he was up to. 

When I was looking at one of the redcurrant cuttings I noticed a spider had made a temporary home by pulling the two sides of a leaf together with his web.  I'm not sure what he was trying to achieve with this but I was amazed that he was actually able to do it.  He must have attached a short piece of gossamer to one side and then walked over to the other side and when the gossamer was tight he just had to keep pulling while the leaf was hoisted up.  It's incredible really.  I don't think that we humans would be able to pull an equivalent amount of weight without some help from at least a few other people if not a crane.

On my travels around the garden I spotted one of the redcurrants that has an aphid colony under some of its leaves.  They don't seem to be causing any real damage so I've left them alone.  They have however caused a blistering effect on the leaves with a wonderful reddish discolouration.  It's looks very strange but actually attractive.  I'd be very interested to know how the aphids manage to make these blisters and why  the leaf then goes red.  I've so many questions and too many internet sights to trawl through to find the answers.  I haven't yet spotted a good book where I can find those answers but one might  turn up yet. 

I can't help but be amazed at these "pests".  They have ingenious ways of trying to ensure their survival and I'm not inclined to just squish them without a second thought just because they are causing some damage to our fruit.  If my very survival depended on it then I suppose I probably would, but it doesn't.  I'd much rather watch the life on our fruit and maybe get a bit less of a harvest.  I'm sure there are lots of things we could learn from these insects if we took the time to "listen" and I intend to find out some of those things. 
I'd like to think that it is possible to grow your own food whilst also encouraging wildlife to flourish.  Humans may make lots of mistakes and cause damage to our environment but there is certainly one positive trait that we have that other animals don't (as far as I know).....we are beginning to realise that we need to be concerned about all of life on Earth and not just our own and so some people are trying to preserve habitats and ensure clean water fand air for all the animals that need it.  Humans have the capacity to help other animals that may need it and we also have the knowledge that a diverse ecosystem is key to our survival.  We are learning from our mistakes and in the end we may well deserve our self appointed title as the most intelligent life form on Earth.

Within us we have the ability to figure out how to conciously cooperate with other animals rather than being in direct conflict with them.  So I intend to do my tiny part by learning as much as I can from the guys that live on our food.  I will certainly be entertained by them anyway.

Alpine Strawberry Propagation Experiments

I decided to propagate some more alpine strawberries a couple of weeks ago and thought I'd try an experiment.  I had already tried sowing some of the seeds from last year's fruit but nothing came of them so I thought I'd try to pick out some of the little runners that the alpine strawberry throws out.  They are nowhere near as long as the ones on normal strawberries so it can be a bit awkward to pin them down into some soil in order for them to root well before being detached from the mother plant.  So I cut off some of the off shoots and order to see if I could get them to root using other methods.  I put two into pots to see what would happen.  This happened.  Oops.  They just went down hill and today they look like they're dead I'm afraid.  When I cut off the shoots there were tiny little beginnings of roots but there obviously just wasn't enough.  I gave them loads of water and left them in the shade but it was obviously just too hard for them to get water to replace that which had been loast through transpiration. 
The same day however I decided to put two other shoots in water to see would they root that way.  I've seen my mother do this loads of times with geraniums and seen as the alpine strawberry seems like it tries to root in mid air while still on the plant I reasoned that it would probably do quite well in water.  I wrote the date on the jar so that I would see how long it took for a reasonable set of roots to grow.
Below is a picture of one of the runners, or off shoots, that I cut off.  When I put this in the water there was only a tiny dot of a root appearing. The little photo was taken one day after I started this experiment and the root had already doubled in size.  This gave me confidence to just wait and see what happened.  One of the cuttings had no roots at all and so nothing happened for about 4 days and then suddenly two little roots started coming out.  Every day I'd look at the cuttings and be amazed at how quickly the roots were forming.  10 days after I put them in the water this is what they look like(below).  I presume that the one on the left is ready to plant by now but I might just give it a few more days to be sure about it.  I've never done this before so I'm not really sure when you're supposed to actually plant them, but I'm guessing that the more roots there are the better the young plant will get on when it goes into soil. 
I find it fascinating that plants can root in just water and seem to be quite happy.  I wonder how they manage to find nutrients with which to build roots.  I know they'll still be getting sugars through photosynthesis but is this enough?  Surely it needs other stuff from the soil. Well, anyway, they seem fine so I'll plant them out in a few days and do the same with some more cuttings.  I love alpine strawberries and I want to make sure I have a good supply of nice healthy ones every year.
Doing experiments like these are really important I think because you begin to realise that things might happen that surprise you.  I'm hoping to get into the habit of just trying things out without caring whether they are successful or not.  Even if my experiments are not always succesful I will still learn something about what not to do.  So I suppose in a way all of these types of experiments will be a success in some way. 
I also have an exeriment on the go with some tiny redcurrant cuttings.  I've no idea what they will do but I'll let you know.




 

About Our Garden

A few people have commented that from looking at this blog you would think we have a huge garden.  So I thought it would be a good idea to put up a picture to show you exactly how much space we are dealing with.  The garden that comes with the house that we are currently renting is a fairly average size, smallish but not too small.  But there is one problem....there is a huge hedge on the right hand side of the garden that casts a massive shadow.  This effectively reduces the growing area of the garden, as about one third of it practically never gets sun.  On the right of the picture is lawn and if this area was in sun it would also be cultivated but for now it serves as somewhere to sit when it's too hot. 
At the back of the garden are loads of bushes that are covering the wall and provide a lovely environment for birds and insects, but this again reduces down the area for growing.  It also provides shelter so we like this wall.  Behind the wall are two MASSIVE trees which bring more shade to the garden when they have leaves on them, which is when most of the fruit and veg need their light most.  Also, the house itself brings shade at certain times, so overall we have one spot that gets good light and this is on the extreme left of the photo.  The green house gets sun from about 10 or 11am to 5 or 6pm and then a little burst again in the evening for about 30 minutes.  This is why the greenhouse is placed where it is. 
So although we have plenty of shelter from the wind we have very limited light and so we have ervything pushed over to the left centre of the garden.  In the winder practically the entire garden stays in shade, so we feel a bit like we're living in an artic region...waiting for the sun to come back in the spring.  The sun just hovers below the tops of the walls and hedges, tantalizing us. 

In the area marked by the squiggly line we grow loads of vegetables, salads, herbs, flowers and fruit.  We are constantly moving pots around trying to get the best light depending on the season or depending on what beds are currently filled with potato plants or peas or whatever.  In this garden we could probably grow enough food for our needs if we were ultra efficient but we're not so we always get a top up of organic veg from the farm where Chris works. 

Just out of picture at the bottom is where we have our compost heap which is another area that gets absolutely no light.  We'd love to have a bigger garden or perhaps even a tiny farm but we are already putting a lot of time into this garden so it's probably no harm that we are limited at the moment while we are still learning(not that the learning process will ever stop).  It's keeping us in control which is probably no bad thing.

Blackcurrant Cutting Update

Back at the start of January I decided to try my hand at taking a blackcurrant cutting and I'm delighted to say that it's doing really well.  I'm a bit surprised that it is so easy to take cuttings but I suppose I'm beginning to realise that growing fruit isn't quite the mystery that one might think.  Back then it was just a stick with some buds on it but now it is a thriving little bush with plenty of flowers on it.

You might notice that there is a nettle growing in with this blackcurrant...well it's not by accident.  I have read that blackcurrants do well if planted near nettles so this one that seeded itself was just left there and is thriving too.  I'm beginning to get into the idea of companion planting a bit more lately as I realise that plants in isolation probably feel a little strange.  There are probably all sorts of reasons why plants prefer to be mixed in with other types of flowers, "weeds" or fruit and we probably don't even know about half of the reasons.  The nettle that is in this pot is certainly not holding back this young plant so I have sanctioned its presence completely.....stopping short of actually serving the residency papers to the nettle.

You can see all the little flowers on this guy in the photo on the left.  I was surprised to see flowers on one so young but who am I to complain.  In preparation of having some extra fruit I have put a little manure around the bottom of the pot.  Next winter I will replant it into a larger pot but for now I'm not going to disturb it.

I absolutely love the blackcurrant flowers as they are so simple and delicate looking, with their little petals curled back neatly. 

There has already been something gnawing at a branch at the top of the cutting so we are keeping a close eye on it to make sure no woodlice families move in, which would end up destroying the flowers. 

The leaves seemed to grow at the top of the cutting first and then gradually start to open all the way down the plant.  Some of these are still opening so the plant will fill out a lot more over the summer.  The important thing is that shoots grow from the base of the plant so as to provide the right kind of shape for best fruiting.  This idea of where the fruit grow best is still a bit confusing but I'm sure it will clear up over the next few years as I watch the plants grow.  But of course you will get fruit from any shaped bush, it's just a matter of getting the best out of a bush.  A couple more shoots will hopefully grow from beneath the soil level as I buried the cutting deep enough to bury some of its buds. 

When I transplant this little bush next winter I can plant it a little deeper than it is now if I need to (if there aren't enough shoots below soil level), so there's no panic for now.

Overall I'm delighted with this experiment and I'll certainly be taking some more cuttings next year.  I will also try to get a cutting from some one who has another blackcurrant bush and which may be an earlier variety.  If you want to spread out the amount of fruit you have over a longer time then it's a good idea to get varieties that fruit at different times.  That way you don't end up with more than you can use for a few weeks and then have none for the rest of the year.