Step-by-step guides to growing berries of all kinds in UK gardens — from soil preparation to harvesting.
These are my step-by-step guides to growing berries in a UK garden, covering soil, planting and the seasonal jobs that actually move the needle. If you only read one, start with the berries-in-season calendar to see what to plant or prune each month.
Salmonberry is a North American relative of the raspberry that grows, fruits, and tastes remarkably like the raspberries and tayberries you already know — but...
Growing guide →One of the questions I'm asked most often is simply: when should I plant my berries? It's a fair question, because get the timing right and a young berry plant...
Growing guide →There are few plants that give as generously as the elder. From a single shrub you get two harvests in two different seasons: frothy heads of elderflower in...
Growing guide →There's a glorious, slightly panicked moment every summer when the berries all seem to ripen at once. The bushes are heaving, the bowls are full, and you've...
Growing guide →A loganberry is a hybrid fruit created by crossing a raspberry with a blackberry — long, conical, and wine-red when ripe, with a sharp, tart flavour that's...
Growing guide →By the third week of July, every loganberry grower hits the same wall: the plant is producing faster than the household can eat. The good news — and I mean...
Growing guide →Redcurrants are one of those plants that get overlooked in British gardens, which is a shame, because they're among the most reliable fruiting shrubs you can...
Growing guide →Somewhere between the jam pan and the third straight day of picking, most loganberry growers ask the obvious question: is this fruit actually good for me, or...
Growing guide →One of the questions I get asked most often, in one form or another, is simply "what should I be picking right now?" It's a fair question — between garden...
Growing guide →Most "unusual berries" articles cover the same six plants and stop there. I've actually grown or written up nearly every berry a British gardener can...
Growing guide →You've decided to grow a loganberry — good decision, and my complete growing guide will take you from planting hole to first harvest. But first you need an...
Growing guide →Every July I get the same question over the garden fence: how do you actually know when a loganberry is ready? It looks ripe for a fortnight before it is ripe,...
Growing guide →Strawberries, by a wide margin — they fruit in their first year, tolerate most soils, and forgive beginner mistakes better than currants or blueberries.
No — only blueberries and a few other acid-loving relatives need genuinely acidic soil. Most cane fruit and currants are happy in ordinary neutral garden soil.
Late autumn to early winter, while the ground is still workable and the plant is dormant, gives roots a full season to establish before next summer's growth.
