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 - Strawberry 'Cambridge Favourite'

Everyone knows you can't beat British strawberries when they are in season. And even better when you can pick them yourself and eat them within seconds of them being picked! Much tastier than the supermarket varieties which have been chilled, travelled and sat around in plastic punnets, the taste of warm fresh strawberries reminds me of going on 'pick your own' expeditions as a child, where the object was to eat as many strawberries as you could without being sick instead of popping them in the basket to pay for them.

I bought three strawberry plants from my local garden centre 'Garden Pride' four years ago. From cultivating the runners and allowing them to spread, I now have a 3 metre long bed full of strawberry plants - the result of my daughter planting twenty plants in the ground two years ago.

First bowl of strawberries 2013 - 'Cambridge Favourite'

I don't give them much care, although they do get attacked by slugs - the wet summer of 2012 meant that most of the strawberries were eaten before they were ready to eat. This year the slugs haven't had much of a chance as July has been exceptionally hot and dry, instead there are a plethora of woodlice eating themselves little hidey-holes in the delicious red berries - disappointingly, some of the reddest berries turn out to be hollow on closer inspection! They taste delicious, even when they aren't quite the traditional pillar-box red - but have to be eaten quickly as they don't last long chilled.

I read that strawberries aren't technically berries. I remember learning in school about the anatomy of a buttercup flower, which is related to the strawberry I think - where the seeds are on the outside of the enlarged flower receptacle. Strange but true!

Plant of the Week - Family Apple Tree

Blossom has been late this year due to the late onset of spring, so I have just managed to catch the blossom on my family apple tree while the sun was making a brief appearance.

I wanted to get a family apple tree as we only have a small garden with room enough for one apple tree, but sourcing one with the exact varieties you want is harder than I thought. With the only other option being to attempt some DIY grafting, I found a happy medium online at Blackmoor Nurseries which had two of the varieties I was after (Worcester Pearmain and Egremont Russet) with a compromise on the Golden Delicious.

My tree is on M9 rootstock and is now in its third year in the garden (I believe it was two years old when I got it) and has come into its own this year with masses of blossom. Last year we only managed to eat three apples from the tree, which I think were all Worcester Pearmain (and deliciously sweet and sharp).

Family Apple Tree in blossom

I read somewhere that the late spring could be a boost to fruit crops, but to the detriment of wheat and other grains, so I am hoping to have a bumper crop this year - watch this space!

The direct link to this tree on the Blackmoor Nurseries website.