Thursday 8 March 2012

Working on the fruit cage again .....

After an initial very cold start, the sky became blue, the wind dropped to a breeze and the sun came out. By 11am the temperature was 8 Celsius, good enough to get out and carry on with the fruit cage.

All the autumn raspberries have now been transplanted, fed and given additional ericaceous compost. The blueberries have had my soil dug away, fed and more ericaceous compost added. That particular side of the cage was finished off by laying two bags of shredded bark. I'm hoping the compost and bark will help the raspberries and blueberries adapt to my neutral slightly alkaline soil. 

The raspberries have been good for around 3 years but last year started to go yellow. The blueberries have now outgrown 4 tubs. They were becoming too expensive to maintain and the tubs were restricting their growth so I'm hoping they won't suffer too much of a shock in my soil. I have also bought some special liquid feed that has seaweed and iron in it.

The left hand side of the cage (as I will enter) has had all spare soil removed ready to be sieved and added to my final raised vegetable bed which has less soil than the others. Tomorrow we will top this part of the cage with shredded bark (might need a little more). Any daffodils that were in that part of the garden have been transplanted to the sides of the cage.

Herewith the photographs of the finished right hand side of the cage (attached to the garage wall). This wall faces due East and gets the sun until around 2pm in summer and 12 midday in winter.

The plant on the right is my loganberry (plus some daffodils). To its left is one blueberry, to the left of that two autumn raspberries.


Far left the blackcurrant, to its right two more autumn raspberries, to their right my other blueberry.


All the bed. We now ache like mad and will shortly be soaking in a late afternoon bath. Tonight is one of our 'school' takeaway Chinese meals round at B's.


7 comments:

  1. It is looking really good, your hard work is paying off. We've been doing more garden sorting today and now joining in with your aches!
    Carol xx

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  2. What a productive day you had! I have to ask what is a "school" takeaway chinese meal?

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    1. Our infant village school closed last summer. The head, school secretary, myself and hubby (ex-governors) all decided to retire early. We are the main 4 in our walking group. Of the other 2 staff members, T. got a job nearby but is on sick leave with a very bad back and C. got a job at another local school. T. & C. join us for a Chinese meal about every 8 weeks so we can catch up on things.

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  3. Ooo you are busy - weather's been nice though! x

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  4. That's looking great. We are planning on making a fruit cage at the allotment, as we have all the framework in place from a homebuilt greenhouse that we no longer use. We stripped all the plastic off it last year, so would just need to add the netting- just another job on the list!

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    1. I would imagine that would look really lovely. Hopefully this year the thieves will be kept at bay.

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  5. Oh I see! I thought it was some special way of cooking you had! Sorry, dippyness strikes again.

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