Autumn Raspberries

autumn raspberries

Raspberries are best grown from bare-root plants in the autumn. I have found that seed varieties are also extremely delicious. There are lots of different varieties available, which bear fruit at different times. The majority of raspberries are harvested between early and late summer, while others are grown for their autumn berries.

There are alternatives to autumn raspberries:
If growing summer varieties, drill holes into the posts and stretch three rows of galvanised wires (12 gauge) between them – these should be 76cm (36in), 106cm (42in) and 167cm (66in) above the ground and held in place by straining bolts, which can be tightened with a spanner. If you have an autumn variety, there’s no need to add the top wire.

Prune canes that held fruit in summer during the autumn, cutting them right back to the ground. Tie in about eight of the strongest new canes from each plant to fruit next year, and remove the rest. Prune autumn fruiting varieties in mid-winter, cutting the old canes back to ground level. Tie in new stems to the supporting wires as they grow, using garden twine

I will let you know how this years crop of autumn raspberries taste later in the year if anyone is interested.

slug Hugging for profit – Gardening

Plotters and profiteers

There is a class war going on in allotments. Allotment groups have hit out at private entrepreneurs attempting to make money from renting out plots to the 150,000-strong waiting list. The private New Allotment Company, for example, is renting out 100sq ft allotments for £150 each; treble the price but a third of the size of typical council plots.

Related Articles

Attack of the guerrilla garlanders. Do raised beds raise the tone? Gardening super tax

Climate change in Cumbria; annual gong show; reindeers’ rights

Hort hotties, something nasty on the compost heap, gardening in the jungle

Are koi carp the devil’s fish?

Matthew Appleby

Children in the garden: how to get kids interested?National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners national secretary Geoff Stokes and National Allotment Gardens Trust chairman Neil Dixon are united in their opposition to commercial profit-making allotment companies. Dixon compares them to drug dealers, making hooked gardeners pay over the odds for what they are addicted to.

But serial entrepreneur Rudi Schogger, managing director of the New Allotment Company, which aims to build 10,000 allotments by 2012, says local authority allotments are “not viable” as a business model, and that if private businesses such as his take over provision for the shortfall in allotments, councils may no longer consider themselves responsible for the service.

He says: “It is a possibility [that new private allotments] might make councils lazy. But I’m not to be held responsible for the public sector. It is up to the taxpayer to demand them or not.

“It’s nanny state stuff – I don’t understand how we arrived at the modern system. It’s a socialist system – without wanting to get into politics. That’s why we arrived at the shortages we have.”

Allotments used to be for pensioners and the poor. Now they are for the middle classes. Do you agree with the new private initiatives?

Slug huggers

I ran a pop-up garden shop in up-and-coming London suburb Brockley recently. We sold the dream ticket of secondhand books, local photo cards of Brockley in the snow, cupcakes, and slug and weedkillers. Only the chemicals failed to shift. This retail offering may sound like a health and safety nightmare, and indeed one child complained about tinfoil in their fairy cake, but the event had a lovely community feel, with a ukulele band, Santa and mulled wine on offer. We used a cute baby as bait (my idea) and gave the proceeds to charity (not my idea).

However, no-one bought any garden products. Maybe it was the time of year. Maybe the trendy Brockley-ites want to do it for free. Maybe the seeds and grow-your-own thing is now so embedded that no-one thinks they need garden chemicals any more. Maybe they are all organic and self-sufficient. But I doubt it.

Last year, sales of chemicals went up overall, perhaps because the damp brought out slugs. Do you still use weedkillers and slugkillers? Or should they be banned?

Snow business in the garden

Is there anything to do in the garden at this time of year? I say there isn’t. Gardening publications say there is. Mainly involving looking at seed catalogues and tidying your shed. I recommend taking a photo of your garden in the snow. Email pictures to gardening@telegraph.co.uk (jpeg or tiff preferred) and we’ll put up a gallery of the best.

Matthew Appleby is Horticulture Week’s deputy editor. Matt also edits Garden Retail magazine and writes gardening news for the Evening Standard and other daily and weekly publications. He is a keen allotment gardener and blogger