Plant of the week - Blackberry 'Loch Ness'

This weeks' plant is another edible - as there are plenty of sweet juicy fruit in the garden at the moment!

Everyone loves blackberries and we all have childhood (or even adult) memories of picking brambles and cramming them into our mouths, coming home with fingers stained in the deliciously tart purple juice. They are a key ingredient in many a fruit pie and one of the true edible wonders of the British countryside.

Brambles grow everywhere in my garden, I have tough job getting rid of them as they are so invasive. For a couple of years I let them get on with it in one or two remote parts of the garden so that I could gather the fruit for a crumble. But what I didn't like was the scratches and cuts from the thorns. So I invested in a cultivated variety...

Blackberry - Loch Ness

'Loch Ness' really does produce amazingly sweet and juicy fruit, the blackberries are a gorgeous rich velvety black (almost tar-like) colour, and the fruits appear in proliferation. It's thornless, so even little ones (or careless big ones) can pick the fruit without worry of a scratch, its just the spiders you have to watch for when you pop them in your mouth - better to rinse and be safe.

I got mine from Crocus, about 3 years ago, and this year it has really come into its own and produced a bumper crop - the first two years were a bit disappointing, but there are already promises of a good crop next year from the tall strong news stems that have appeared this year. It fruits on the previous year's growth, so once a stem has fruited it needs to be cut back to the ground - taking care not to remove the new stems that will produce fruit the following year.

It doesn't seem to mind the shade - as its growing on a north-east facing wall along with a loganberry. It makes good use of the shady fence that would otherwise be bare.

Bowl of blackberries - 'Loch Ness'

We've already had about 1kg of fruit from one plant - and there are more berries to come. And as if that's not enough, the maple-like leaves become a vibrant shade of orange in autumn before the leaves drop! You can't go wrong...

Plant of the week Blueberry 'Bluecrop'

If I had to recommend just one of the edible plants in my garden then there is no doubt that it would be the blueberry. Even if you have small garden or patio,  there's no excuse as they don't take up much space. Blueberries can be quite expensive in the shops but the plant itself requires very little care other than the acid soil it grows in so growing your own is cost-effective.

I've had mine for about 4 years now and like all fruit bushes, it produces more crop year on year. It's outside in full sun in a pot filled with ericaceous (acid) compost and I only ever water it with rain water (tap water is too alkaline I read somewhere). I do feed it just as its flowering with an ericaceous plant feed.

Blueberry 'Bluecrop' - in a pot filled with ericaceous compost

 I got this plant from Crocus - it came in a small pot - the plant was about a quarter the size it is now. I selected this variety for its heavy cropping and the fact that it self pollinates. I'd read that some blueberries need a partner to help them produce fruit but this has done well all by itself!

The wood pigeons love them - there are a pair of fat ones nearby who are always looking a bit pleased with themselves - probably responsible for eating the entire cherry crop too. But despite this we still managed to get a few bowls full of berries - probably about 1.5kg all in all.

A bowl of delicious blueberries!

Best of all they taste delicious - I only pick them when very ripe - so each one is full of flavour - unlike the supermarket packs which sometimes have 50% bland tasting berries - we have them in crumbles and best of all - with greek yogurt and honey.

Go on - try one at home - I promise you won't be disappointed!

Plant of the week - Crocosmia

There are two important things that I don't know about the crocosmia in my garden. First off, I don't know how they got there, and second, I don't know if I actually really like them. Let me explain...

Crocosmia

I didn't plant any crocosmia, and there weren't any in the garden when we first got here. But then suddenly I noticed them on their silent invasion, in a couple of spots in the garden, unobtrusive, but biding their time.

Then one year I noticed that I was having to pull a lot of the blade like shoots up from various places around the garden, I kept pulling them up - they kept re-appearing. It seemed like they were coming in under the neighbour's fence (or were they actually escaping from my garden into theirs). I'd been throwing them in the compost, but they were surviving and actually growing in the compost. Action was needed - an extermination program.

Aside from the two 'managed' clumps in the garden, I now treat crocosmia in the same way I treat bindweed - all traces of them go to the tip rather than the compost, but its still an ongoing job to keep them under control. The second clump in the garden started off as a couple of leaves which I left as it was in a good spot. A year later and its a huge swathe of leaves and fiery orange blooms.

Crocosmia

So why is such a troublesome specimen now 'plant of the week'? Well secretly I actually love it, its foliage is a great colour, the leaf shape contrasts well with the other plants around it, and it provides a bit of fiery colour at a time when other flowers in my garden are fading. I love its tenacity and hardiness - in the same way a naughty child might always be causing trouble and be under your feet but is still secretly your favourite.

I have a crazy fantasy about digging up a clump and dumping it by the side of the railway cutting by the station, and that in a few years time commuters will be confronted with the sight of a bank of flaming crocosmia on their way from Brighton to London. So if it ever happens - you know how it got there!

Well I don't know how it got into my garden, but I'm kind of glad that it did.

Don't buy the corms - I'll happily send out what I dig up!