Summer Fruits for a Healthy Lifestyle

SUMMER FRUITS FOR A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE

There is so many easy to grow summer berries that just spoil you for choice, and if you have access to an allotment you can really indulge in a huge variety that will keep you enjoying fresh fruits from June till the frosts come. However most can be stored in freezers to maintain that summer luxury all year round.

Although we have grown up in the Dundee area with berry fields everywhere and people of my generation spent many days during the summer holidays picking rasps and strawberries.

It was always a seasonal pleasure that only lasted a few weeks of hard graft but you got paid and it always seemed to be sunny in the countryside.

Life has moved on. Very few locals go to the berries any more, but we can grow our own fruit and modern techniques and varieties allow us to extend the season.

My earliest memories (1960), of home grown fruit was picking a few strawberries to add to my plate of cornflakes at breakfast. I felt like royalty with the health benefits from fresh fruits invigorating my mind. The journey to work from my home in St. Marys to Dawson Park was no problem on my bike, and anyway it had a three speed gear, very modern.

I have always had a deep interest in fruit culture from rasps to apples, having worked commercially on many soft and top fruit farms in southern England, and now back in Scotland my fruit growing is on a domestic scale. My research background encourages me to try new products and now that we have global warming it is worth trying out those fruits normally associated with warmer climates..

By the way, global warming is a long term statistic we are informed about, but not immediately obvious considering the last three very wet years followed by the coldest winter in living memory for many people, though in Dundee we always seemed to miss the worst.

Anyway I will give you my thoughts on the summer soft fruits I have been growing both in my garden and on my allotment today and next week.

I will discuss my top fruit trees in a later article.

I grow strawberries, raspberries, black, white and red currants, saskatoons, blaeberries, blueberries, gooseberries, brambles, goji berries, figs, outdoor grapes and cape gooseberries. I also had Aronias, the chokeberry, and lingonberries for a few years.

Saskatoon fruit in July

Strawberries

Strawberries can now be picked over several months by selecting the appropriate variety and growing technique.

My season starts in early to mid June with an early variety called Mae. I have two rows, one of which I cover with a low polythene tunnel at the end of winter. This harvests two weeks ahead of the unprotected row, and the polythene cover protects the ripening fruit from damp so I get a full crop as there is no botrytis to spoil any fruit.. Main season varieties start in July with Honeoye, and Elsanta, then followed by late varieties Symphony and Florence. Commercially Elsanta is the supermarkets favourite as it is a large clean berry with excellent shape and a heavy cropper.

Late season fruit above picked outdoors in October
 
There is also a drive to put back flavours, textures and high nutritional values back into fruit to improve the health of the product. In the past there was too much emphasis on producing large fruit with a heavy cropping potential. However a lot of these varieties suffered from botrytis which rotted a lot of fruit during wet weather, so it was normal to spray chemicals at least three times just before fruiting. Today the use of chemicals is frowned upon, so newer varieties are bred with vigour that are not prone to rotting so no chemicals are needed.

The picking season extends till October, depending on sunshine levels with a perpetual variety Flamenco. I am also trying a new perpetual called Malling Opal. The perpetuals will continue well into November with a late autumn, and may look brilliant, but lack of strong sunshine gives a hard fruit devoid of flavour.

It is now possible to follow the experience of the commercial growers and buy in cold stored runners (dormant leafless crowns), at a range of times up to July and plant these outdoors or in poly tunnels or glasshouse, even using growbags, (ten to a bag). They will start cropping sixty days from planting. So with a range of different planting dates fruiting can continue for months.

I have included a photo of some fruit of strawberries and raspberries I picked on 4^th October 2007.

Strawberry growing is easy, but they must be strictly managed.

I grow in rows 2.5 feet apart with plants at one foot intervals. If using my own runners and they are plentiful, I plant a double row at six inch spacing to give me a heavy crop in the first year.

I do not remove any runners during the summer, though many people do, and I control slugs before cropping and bed the rows with straw to stop soil splashing onto the fruit.

After harvest I remove the straw and cut off all foliage. The crowns grow again very quickly. In early winter I give a light dressing of garden compost between the rows which I dig in as well as any runners rooting in the middle of the rows. I only crop for three years.

Raspberries

Raspberries should be grown in every Scottish garden. They should be as common as rhubarb and just as healthy. It is our national sweet dish and very easy to grow.

The variety Glen Ample bred at the Scottish Crops Research Institute at Invergowrie is now the main summer season heavy cropping raspberry. New varieties are being developed for vigour, better flavours, and pest and disease resistance to reduce the need for chemical controls, as well as an ability to crop well under tunnels to extend the cropping season.

Look out for the new SCRI variety Glen Fyne,
a heavy cropper with very sweet berries full of flavour.

For gardeners not having tunnels the variety Autumn Bliss will fruit from early August till the frosts. It fruits on current canes, so I cut back the old canes to ground level then do a light thinning of new canes so they do not overcrowd each other. I also give them some support with six inch weldmesh wire held at three feet high which they can then grow through.

The last three wet summers have resulted in the spread of raspberry root rot disease, phytophthora which causes the leaves and new emerging canes to wilt and die off. Studies are under way to breed resistance or at least tolerance into new varieties. I am testing a variety bred at Washington University called Cascade Delight that is reputed to be tolerant to root rot. My previous row of Glen Ample died out last year with what I suspect could be phytophthora. Some types of this disease which is spread by ground water is quite specific only affecting one host, but others strains can affect a wide range of plants. Another strain of phytophthora causes potato blight a big problem recently in our wet summers, but this one spreads in the air, as well as by infected tubers.

I will cover more soft fruit next week to include the currants and gooseberries as well as the more exotic outdoor grapes, gojis, chokeberries and figs and the latest berry gaining popularity, the saskatoon.

END

Flaming June did happen this year

FLAMING JUNE DID HAPPEN THIS YEAR

The summer returned this year after three years of cool and wet weather following a very long and cold winter. That is the kind of normal weather I remember from childhood to youth, before global warming appeared and weather pattern became guesswork.

The garden plants have responded with strong healthy growth, a lot less pest and diseases, flowers in profusion and fruit crops to come, full of potential.

Some outdoor fuchsias never made it through the winter, hebes were lost as well as my Leptospermum Red Damask, however Fuchsia Mrs. Popple has sprouted from the base and will have its first flowers by the time you read this, despite the attention of the greenfly and frog hoppers, (cuckoo spit).

Always give apparently dead plants plenty of time after a hard winter to recover before you dig them out. Some years ago I had a 15 foot tall Cordyline australis the Torbay palm, that died after a very hard frost. It was cut back to ground level, but then 18 months later five new shoots appeared and it sprang back into life. A lesson was learnt. Eucalyptus can also be a bit tender when young though my twelve year old specimen has never looked better.

Robinia frisia, the false acacia, an excellent small tree with golden leaves suitable for domestic gardens lost a few branches but soon recovered. It needs good drainage at its feet to survive the winter, otherwise die back of shoots get infected with the coral spot fungus which can then spread to healthy wood.

This year it was the turn of my date palm, Phoenix canariensis, to die back to ground level after successfully growing outdoors in a sunny border for six years as a specimen dot plant in the middle of a flower bed. It got chopped back to ground level but I see it is trying to make a recovery.

The Flower Garden

Glorious colour abounds in herbaceous borders, rose beds, climbing roses, flowering shrubs and in tubs, hanging baskets and borders with summer bedding plants.

Dead heading to remove seed heads is a constant task with Rhododendrons, Azaleas, Himalayan blue poppies, Iceland poppies, and winter pansies who wont stop flowering. I have never known them to continue for so long so I keep feeding and watering them.

Seeds gathered from the Meconopsis, Himalayan blue poppy, and the Iceland Poppies will be sown this month. I hope the Iceland poppies will germinate fairly soon as they are to grow on for flowering next spring, but the Meconopsis will probably not germinate till next spring. Keep both of them moist, shaded and cool to assist good germination.

My bed of geraniums grown from cuttings every year is a mass of colour, but my other summer bedding plant the tuberous begonias have yet to put out their first flowers. They are looking very strong. I purchased a tray of fifty mixed double non stop tuberous begonias about 15 years ago. They flower reliably every summer then get dried off, and overwintered in a box in the garage,

They never let you down.

Excellent value for money.

The Fruit Garden

A funny year for fruit. I have been too busy on other activities, painting flowers, and running art classes, so I never got around to netting my strawberries to keep the birds from eating them. I never lost a single berry, yet the local blackie took a liking to my red currant bushes so these got the strawberry net for protection. I have not needed to net red currants for the last four years. Birds left them alone, but not this year.

The net has also been erected over my saskatoon patch as they are so favoured by the birds that they will even attempt to tunnel underneath the net if it is not buried around the edges.

The saskatoons, Amelanchier alnifolia, should be ready for picking mid July probably at the same time as my red currants, black currants and gooseberries.

This year I only have Autumn Bliss raspberries as my row of Glen Ample got infected by a root rot fungus which wiped them out. I think it was phytophthora but cannot be certain.

There replacement variety Cascade Delight will not bear any fruit till next year, (hopefully)

Apple trees are quite heavy with crop, but the natural June drop did some thinning for me. I then did a little bit more to space apples out so I get larger fruit.

My variety Fiesta has adopted a biennial fruiting attitude with only five apples on a young tree that gave me over forty last year.

I will cover fruit crops in greater depth next week.

The Scottish Crops Research Institute will be holding an event for those in the fruit industry on Thursday 15^th July at Invergowrie to showcase developments and trends in their breeding and research programmes. This cutting edge technology eventually filters down to gardener level as we benefit from the release of new fruit varieties with enhanced cropping potential, better flavour, more disease resistance, stronger vigour and acclimatised to Scottish growing condition.

The Allotment

Two rows of Beetroot Bolthardy germinated very well so they required a thinning to leave them about an inch apart. These will grow into lovely baby beet size before a further thinning to four to six inches for the main crop. Last year our beetroot was left in the ground unprotected until winter digging time in January and was still excellent. The cold winter did not do any harm. We use beetroot for soups mixed with potato, onion and a wee bit of orange rind, then finished off on the plate with some yoghurt or sour cream swirled into the surface. It is brilliant and most likely very healthy.

Leeks are another vegetable that are very easy and rewarding as they keep you supplied with fresh vegetables right through the winter till March, or April in a long cold winter.

I plant mine out in rows twelve inches apart in the traditional style on good ground manured or composted in winter. Take out a shallow furrow and dibble in holes about four to six inches apart. Lift the young seedlings when about eight inches tall and top and tail them before dropping them in the dibber holes. Water them in and leave them alone.

Fresh vegetables are now being harvested for the table regularly. Lettuce. radish, spring onions and now the first courgettes and Swiss chard leaves. The former makes fantastic soup and the latter brilliant as a stir fry ingredient but dont use much oil.

The social side of allotment gardening brings people together at this time of year to swap spare vegetable plants, tomato plants, courgettes, pumpkins, leeks and other new types worthy of a trial, and when its too hot to garden there are always plenty of sunny patios to sit down and relax on.

The Cold Greenhouse

As the heatwave continues most plants that had greenhouse protection have been moved outside leaving the grapes and tomatoes and four pots of Cape gooseberries which continue to grow very strongly. At this moment I still have space for them, but if they get much bigger they will need to go out somewhere.

End