Focus on soft fruit

FOCUS ON SOFT FRUIT  

The soils and climate around Tayside and Angus are perfect for growing a wide range of soft fruit.

We have specialised in raspberry and strawberry growing for local and national markets for generations and now blackcurrants, brambles and blueberries are grown on a large scale.

The James Hutton Institute, previously known as the Scottish Crops Research Institute has been studying soft fruit for a long time. Initially the emphasis was on commercial growing methods, pest and disease control and breeding new varieties suited to our location. Research now continues on a global scale and includes potatoes, and cereals and research into improving the health benefits of edible plants, integrated pest and disease management rather than total control with chemicals as in the past, and working with the environment especially with weather pattern changes brought on by global warming. Scientists from all over the world come to Dundee to carry out research.

Research will always require a commercial application to attract funding, so new varieties and growing techniques are aimed at growers and farmers, but there is usually a spin off for the amateur gardener who likes to keep up to date. Unfortunately, however for the amateur gardener, most of the new varieties of soft fruit are bred to be successful under polythene tunnels as this type of production is demanded of the growers from their main clients, the supermarkets. Be aware of this when trying out new varieties that you wish to grow in the open without protection, as they may be a bit prone to botrytis, especially if we are in for a spell of wet summers.

The Scottish diet gets a fairly bad press, but we now have knowledge of all the best foods we should be eating, and as healthy living becomes more fashionable and demand for allotment grows maybe in time we can reverse this reputation.

Modern soft fruit is now being bred for flavour, scent, and increased antioxidant values as well as resistance to the major pests and diseases.

New blackcurrant varieties are being bred for a high vitamin C content.

Now I wonder if it is possible to retain these healthy attributes in a blackcurrant fruit wine.

That way I can still enjoy a wee tipple in the knowledge that it really is doing me good.

Strawberries

Elsanta is still hard to beat for a mid season strawberry, but Honeoye is earlier. Mae is even earlier still and if you put a low polythene tunnel over them in mid March you will gain another fortnight.

I continue with the late varieties of Symphony and Florence. The fruit is large, firm with a great flavour, but Florence can be a bit too dark in colour.

Raspberries

Glen Ample is one of the best main crop varieties, but can suffer from phytophthora root rot which is now becoming a real menace. Autumn Bliss will fruit from mid summer till the frosts. It has large fruit of an excellent flavour and is resistant to root rots. Work is continuing at James Hutton Institute to breed new raspberry varieties with sufficient vigour to resist phytophthora root rots.

Blackcurrants and Gooseberries

Ben Conan is my favourite, though Ben Lomond is very popular. Both have large fruit with excellent flavour, produce heavy yields and are very high in vitamin C.

Ben Conan does not grow too tall, so is very suited to gardens and allotments with limited space.
Big Ben is said to have huge berries, but I have not tried it yet.

Research work continues at Invergowrie into producing a red and a yellow gooseberry with resistance to mildew and also with thornless stems to ease picking.

Blackberries

Helen is very early bramble. The fruit a great flavour with very small seeds so is suitable for jam as well as eating fresh. I tried Loch Ness but found it suffered a lot of botrytis in our wet summers, though commercially under tunnels it is one of the best.

Blueberries

Bluecrop is very popular with large fruit, but they will still need netting from birds and will only grow in an acid soil.

Saskatoons and Chokeberries

Both still at the novelty stage, but very easy to grow with heavy crops of black fruits very high in anti-oxidants. Aronia Viking is the most popular variety of Chokeberry.

Saskatoons crop in July and can be eaten fresh, added to yoghurts, baked for pies, scones, oaties, sauces, jam and compot and makes a delicious wine if there is any spare.

Chokeberry is used in a similar way except that it is a wee bit too astringent for eating fresh, but its high vitamin C content makes it a must have for the health conscious gardeners.

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Healthy Summer Eating

SUMMER FRUITS JUST GET HEALTHIER

Last week I ran over a few thoughts on the raspberry and strawberry for a true taste of Scottish summer. This week I will also include others a bit less popular, but definitely far more healthier.

My only omission will be rhubarb as it is not a fruit, but we use it as such in jams, crumbles, and stewed for puddings and it ranks as high as most others as a delicious health product.
   

                                                    New SCRI Glen Fyne rasps

Black, red and white currants

These fruits are very high in both vitamin C and anti oxidants. Ben Connan, Ben Lomond and Ben Dorain the latest newcomer, were all bred at the Scottish Crops Research Institute and are heavy croppers and disease resistant. Blackcurrants make fantastic jam and are great in a summer pudding mixed with other soft fruits. If you have enough bushes and can spare the fruit, blackcurrants make a brilliant dessert wine.

Prune blackcurrants immediately after picking as this helps to ripen up the young shoots which will crop the following year.

I also grow Red Lake redcurrants and White Versailles white currants, though there are many more fine varieties. Red and white currants are excellent additions to summer puddings, or lightly stewed and sweetened for adding to morning muesli or Greek yoghurt with honey. They also make fantastic wine.

Gooseberries

New varieties have emerged with resistance to mildew and SCRI hope to have a red fruited thornless variety available to the trade in a couple of years time.

Invicta is a superb dessert and cooking gooseberry, but picking is a nightmare. The bush will draw blood, but the fruit which is quite sweet, is heavenly eaten when ripe straight off the bush. Grow on a leg and remove all low growing branches too close to the ground and keep the centres open to assist picking.

Remove any sawfly caterpillars as soon as you spot them or they will very quickly defoliate the bush.

Brambles

Blackberries are no longer a prickly problem when picking and pruning as most new cultivated types are thornless. They are perfect on a wall or shed or can be trained in rows along support wires. Flavour, fruit size and thornless stems as well as disease resistance has been bred into newer varieties such as Loch Tay and Loch Ness both from SCRI. Sweetness and aromatic flavour have been bred into Loch Maree, the latest newcomer.

I'd love to say they were my favourite, but Helen which crops in early August has seeds so small the fruit makes a perfect jam. No need to strain off the juice for making jelly.

Pruning to remove all the old fruiting wood can be done any time after fruiting, then tie in all the new young shoots which will fruit next year.

Blueberries

A mid to late summer soft fruit easy to grow if you have a moist but free draining acid soil or use containers with an ericaceous compost. Some varieties have very large fruit like the popular Bluecrop. Eat them fresh or in juices.

Soils can be made more acidic by incorporating leaf mould from pine woods and giving a dressing of sulphur chips. I give light dressings of acidic fertilisers such as sulphate of ammonia, sulphate of iron, and sulphate of potash.

They will need netting from birds during cropping.

Saskatoons

Also known as Juneberry these fruiting forms of Amelanchier are the latest new fruit bush for a health conscious diet. They are high in vitamin C and many minerals as well as being very high in anti oxidants.

They are very easy to grow on most soils, have few pests or diseases and give a very heavy crop of black sweet berries great eaten fresh, or used in jams, yoghurt, pies, summer puddings and make an excellent wine.

I started picking my first berries in early July and will continue till the end of the month.

At present they are fairly unknown but becoming quite popular as word gets around. They will be on show at the Dundee Flower and Food Festival from 3^rd to 5th September.

I have created a special Saskatoon page on my website www.johnstoa.com detailing my experience with them over the last six years.

Other fruit

Figs grow and ripen perfectly in Dundee trained against a south wall though I have given my Brown Turkey variety a restricted root run in a sunken pit. My young bushes about four years old will give me about twenty delicious fruits in late summer.

Chokeberry, Aronia melanocarpa is grown very successfully around Dundee as our mild moist climate suits it perfectly. It is rated as one of the healthiest fruits on the planet, due to its very high levels of anti oxidants and vitamin C. However, although it is too astringent to be eaten raw it is perfect for blending into juices, smoothies and health drinks.

Goji berries are worth trying as a novelty, but they have been a bit over hyped with stories of living a very long life if you eat a lot of them daily. My two year old plants have still to show a berry, but I am patient. Grow them as a climber on a wall or fence.

Outdoor grapes are worth a try. I grow Brant on a south wall getting over one hundred small bunches of black sweet grapes every year. I keep growth in check with summer and winter pruning as they are very vigorous.

I am also trying other outdoor varieties on my allotment plot but as yet global warming at City Road allotment site has had no great impact.

In a later article I will mention my outdoor peach, plums, pears and apples.

Fruit for the Future

The Scottish Crops Research Institute held an open day on 15^th July to show the direction and findings of recent research with raspberries, blackcurrants, blueberries and brambles.

Studies have started on berry crops on the effects of global warming which reduces the chilling time during winter dormancy. A cold period is necessary for most fruit otherwise flowering capacity is reduced the following year.

A programme of blueberry breeding is underway to find varieties suitable for Scottish conditions, having large healthy fruit, free from pest and diseases fruiting over as long a period as possible so local growers can meet a huge market demand which at present is met with imports.

New varieties of raspberries have large sweet fruit with an aromatic flavour cropping over a longer season. In a tasting session the varieties Glen Fyne and Glen Magna were absolutely delicious.

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