Friday 16 March 2012

Feeling Fruity

I had a few days leave this week so I spent it on the lottie planting fruit bushes. I had dug up some raspberries from my garden - they didn't do very well there. My brother gave me one which he suspects may be a golden variety and a fellow allotmenteer, who was giving up her plot, gave me permission to dig up hers. All in all about 30 plants altogether - it's a good job we both love raspberries. I had been mulling over how to construct a cheap fruit cage. Searching on line showed them to be very expensive to buy and what with timber being quite pricey I had a walk around the site to see what others were doing to protect their fruit. I saw one plot had a simple cane, tennis ball and netting affair - genius. Tennis balls £1 for 4 in Poundland, I had already bought 8ft canes last year and 4m x 20m netting for about £36 from ebay (it is my birthday in March and I asked for money to buy allotment stuff). I'm pretty impressed, even if I do say so myself.
I joined the netting in the middle with twine and likewise secured it in the corners to stop the surplus netting tripping me up.
I also planted a couple of  very small blueberry bushes, that I also bought from Poundland.
In the foreground you can see the ph meter - just checking the the mixture of manure and ericacious compost was acid enough. Under the netting to the right are currant bushes; black, white and red. Also a few strawberries donated by my mum. I hoping to have a few more stawberries soon as a free gift from subscribing to Grow Your Own magazine - another birthday present, thanks Dad.