Fruit bushes in… Rhubarb doing well!

Popped down to the allotment yesterday afternoon, before the Rugby (Wow what a game, shame England weren’t playing like that six weeks ago!!). I managed to get hold of a number of fruit bushes from Lidl for next to nothing so I thought I’d plant them up. I had prepared an area for raspberry canes, but as Lidl only had one individual plant I thought I’d give that to Dad to plant at home. I was really looking for somewhere in the region of 10 plants to put up.

But, as the bed was ready, I thought I’d plant the 2 gooseberry, 2 redcurrant and 1 blackcurrant bushes there.  They seem to be at home. As you can see from the right of the picture I still have quite a lot of clearance to do up at the top half of the plot – and we won’t even discuss the bottom half just now, OK! :)

The fruit trees seem to be at home where they are, quite closely planted together, but this is by design, I am hoping to force these cheap trees to grow small – we’ll see how we go with that – it may be that next year, after they have been where they are for a little while, I may move them about a little bit – but we’ll see. I was concerned that they wouldn’t do anything as they were just ‘heeled’ in over the Christmas months as time didn’t allow me the trip. I’ll just keep a close eye on them…

 

Finally, this year, after being in the ground for 3 years the Rhubarb actually looks promising! The asparagus that was planted in the same “permanent” bed has, however, not faired as well and I have written this off as a crop. I’ve planted some gladioli in this bed now so that I can pick my wife some nice cut flowers a little later in the season. Very exciting to have the rhubarb up though – a little bit of Rhubarb and blackberry crumble later in the year perhaps :) And, of course, the childhood memories of rhubarb dipped in sugar just eaten raw!

I’ve got a day at home today, so I’ll tidy up the back-garden plot and fit the mini poly tunnel that was also a bargain from Lidl and plant out some seeds in trays to get the season going – I’m a little behind really.