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.
Blackcurrants are one of the most rewarding soft fruits you can grow in a British garden. They are fully hardy, reliably productive, tolerant of most soils,...
Growing guide →One of the questions I'm asked most often is some version of "I haven't really got a garden, can I still grow my own fruit?" And the answer, happily, is yes,...
Growing guide →Yes, cranberries are good for you. They are low in calories, high in vitamin C, and packed with antioxidants — in particular a group of plant compounds called...
Growing guide →Cranberries and lingonberries are related but not the same plant. Both belong to the Vaccinium family — the same genus as blueberries and bilberries — but they...
Growing guide →Cranberries grow very well in pots — in fact, a wide, shallow container of ericaceous compost is the best way to grow them in most British gardens. A container...
Growing guide →If you've never grown gooseberries, let me make the case in a single sentence: there is no fruit better suited to the British garden. They shrug off our cold...
Growing guide →Every so often a visitor to my garden points at a sprawling cane heavy with dark, jewel-like fruit and asks, "Is that a blackberry or a raspberry?" The honest...
Growing guide →Of all the jobs in my berry patch, pruning loganberries is the one that worries new growers the most, and the one that turns out to be the simplest once the...
Growing guide →Every spring I get asked whether loganberries can really be grown in a pot, usually by someone with a paved yard who has fallen for that deep-red, slightly...
Growing guide →Here's something I wish someone had told me when I started out: you don't need a garden to grow berries. A patio, a balcony, a doorstep, even a sunny...
Growing guide →I'll let you in on the gardener's open secret: you almost never need to buy a second berry bush. A single blueberry plant will set you back eight to fifteen...
Growing guide →So you've decided to grow chokeberries. Good choice. The very next question is which one, because black chokeberry and red chokeberry are both fine garden...
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.
