Saving fruit plants on overgrown allotment
L-Marie M
Posts: 2
Hello, after some advice. I got an overgrown allotment last spring and am working my way through reclaiming it. It had been strimmed back to ground level by the council so was basically just turf but I was told by a local that one area used to be a fruit bed so I left it alone to see what would turn up. Sure enough several tiny bushes grew over the course of last summer, from the leaves I'd guess they are various currant varieties. I also had several clumps of rhubarb and some raspberries. It was all rather small and pathetic, I'm guessing due to the combination of untimely strimming, several years of no cultivation and being overgrown with grass/weeds. How can I reclaim them? I've put wire up for the raspberries and began training some canes last autumn (they fruited through the summer). Mostly I'm not sure how to go about turning the area around the bushes and rhubarb back into a proper bed without digging around them and damaging the plants. Could I build a shallow raised area around the bases and fill with mulch over the grass? Is it even worth it or should I start from scratch? Any help much appreciated. Thanks and happy growing.
Last edited: 19 March 2017 12:39:50
Posts
I'd prepare a new area, removing all weeds and adding well-rotted manure then dig them up and transplant them. It's not too late to do that given the delayed start to the spring and, if they survive, should respond well. They won't do well in their current location surrounded by grass and if they have been neglected the soil they are in will likely be short of nutrients.
I would advise hand weeding round the base of the plants to minimise disturbance to their roots then a good sprinkling of blood, fish and bone round each plant. If you put compost around them too deeply you may rot the stems and kill the plants but you could get some cardboard and put that round the base of your currants - after rain - to maintain the feed and moisture levels and suppress weeds.
Use bricks, stones or bits of wood to weight it down and leave it there all summer. It will gradually rot down into the soil and can then be replaced in autumn. That way you have time to concentrate on getting the pruning right to shape your currant bushes.
Rhubarb will just love a great pile of compost in spring and autumn.
As you don't know the age of the fruit bushes, they may be in line for replacement. Varieties have moved on and you may be nurturing rubbish. If you start afresh you can go for the best. Be selective don't accept donations from fellow allotmenteers.
That's true but they may be good ones. I'd wait and see this summer and then, if they're not good, plant fresh ones in autumn when conditions for settling in well are best.
We moved into this house 12 years ago. In the garden were two gooseberry bushes and a rhubarb clump that had to be removed while raised beds were built. After some weeks of lying around in a corner, these were replaced in the new beds.
The bushes have given us masses of gooseberries and it's only in the last couple of years that one of them is dying off. I have taken a cutting which is now established, and I plan to replace the weak bush with this.
The rhubarb is a hero, a legend! No one I know grows rhubarb like this, it's huge. My friends come round to help themselves to it. Now and then a section of the crown looks rotten and I dig it out, but there's still plenty left.
So don't give up on the old plants, they may serve you well. Try them out for another season. Currant bushes are easy to propagate from cuttings, so that's also an option if the old bushes are getting tired. I bought two blackcurrant bushes, and took cuttings to grow a third one. This turned out to be the biggest and strongest of the three.
I don't think mulch would kill the grass, you really need to do a bit of hand weeding around the bushes, but take case, as fruit bushes and canes often have roots close to the surface. Then a layer of compost would be good (not heaped around the stems,) and some potash-high fertiliser (e.g. tomato feed) as they start to grow, to encourage blossom and fruit; and rhubarb loves compost.
Thanks everyone. I think I'll have a gentle clear around them, give them some compost, see what happens this season and then reasses. I have plenty of space to be getting on with other things in the meantime and it seems a shame not to give them a chance if they're trying.
My neighbours blackcurrents are at least 30 years old and still going strong, they were there when he bought the house, they are 100% neglected, not pruned not fertilised only mown round. My own house was empty for 3 years and the garden had been neglected longer, I have redcurrents, black currents and gooseberries that all give good crops on total neglect, I would say keep the weeds down either with handweeding or using a plastic or fabric "mulch" round them and give them a chance to come back.