[sellickbhoy]

Hi all

i recently bought and planted a whole load of fruit trees and bushes - apples, cookers, pears, plum, loads of rasps, blackberries, a pair of Kiwi's, cranberry and tayberry - and i'd already had a couple of blackberries in teh garden

I've also got about 40 strawbs in pots - 8 of them are going into their second season after a glorious 1st season and the rest are new plants coming into their first fruitful summer - the older plants have all been cut back

I was in the local nursery last night getting some bits and pieces and they had fruit plants for sale - they all looked very lively, plenty leaves on. But mine are all still "naked" in that respect.

OK, i guess these were grown under cover ot somewhere warmer so they are ready for planting out now and mine are still in the dormant winter phase, but left me right scunnered.

can't wait for the next month or so and hoepfully the return of some life to the garden!!

[juliag]

mine are just the same as yours, 56 raspberry canes put in last year and they just look 'dead'. Roll on next month , only a few more weeks to go and signs of life should be showing 

[doganjo]

But maybe the nursery ones have been brought on too quickly and may not be such good producers?

[Rosemary]

Mine all look dead too, but they'll soon come away. the blackcurrants and gooseberries have leaf buds and the rhubarb is pushing through as well. And I heard two blackbirds giving it laldy yesterday evening - spring is just around the corner!

[doganjo]

Ooh, Rosemary - could you let me have a Rhubarb stool please if you have enough of it.  That's one of the plants the old man next door covered with 4 inches of chuckies when he bought my croft!  As well as about £1000 of other plants - just killed stone dead for no other reason than he wanted an easy life.  Lazy B----r

[Rosemary]

Absolutely no problem. We'll try to lift it at the weekend - weather permitting and I'll email you.

[doganjo]

Super - I can maybe take Andrew's plastic box over at the same time - forgot to take it out of the car at the meeting.

[ballingall]

If I want to split or move rhubard, can I still do it now? And they'll be ok for picking from this year?

Beth

[Rosemary]

I think it's OK to do it now - obviously, since I've just done it

It's pretty hardy stuff.

[doganjo]

It sure is - we had a rhubarb patch when we moved in to our croft about the size of a billiard table and by the time I sold it 10 years later it was the size of the penalty box on a pitch.

[sellickbhoy]

spring is indeed just around the corner!!

My 2nd year rhubarb is starting to poke through - no sign of the new stuff planted in october though - but no rush

and all my strawberry plants that had looked a bit dead are showing signs of life as new green sheets/leaves are appearing

no action on teh blackberry/raspberry front though

still, i'll be patient - i'm sure it'll all be fine!

[sabrina]

Did you see on Countryside this week that the lady was selling rhubarb for £4.80 a kilo, I was so shocked 

[sunnyjohn]

With an ample supply of rhubarb on one of our allotment plots, we were happy to offer a 'spare' root on another plot to anyone who wanted it. We've plans to renovate the plot, and the one rhubarb plant was in ther way. It was evidently large and neglected, but I hadn't reckoned on HOW large. It took an afternoon to ease it from the soil and, even breaking off many roots and cutting off some of the peripheries, I ended up with a HUGE mass of root that took two people to lift out of the ground. By then our 'quarrying' had attracted plenty of interest, and several people asked for some of it. We ended up dividing it into eight sizeable lumps, which took two trips in the wheelbarrow to deliver to the eager recipients. So, five happy fellow allotmenters later, and a gooseberry bush also shifted, the ground is cleared for the rotovator to work right through. I just need a couple of barrow-loads of topsoil to fill the enormous hole!

It's gratifying to know we have so much on another plot we could 'spare' that one, and that it will be used and not wasted. And, after all, rhubarb tatses good and 'keeps you regular', as my granny always said, with a naughty grin!

Where we live, 40 miles north of London, the raspberry canes are leafing nicely, and lots of the little 'suckers' are sprouting new canes a foot or two from the 'parent' canes. We did really well with them last year, and we're hopeful of as many this year. We're looking forward to raspberries, raspberry flans, pies, jam, cakes.... I'm drooling at the thought... (or maybe it's just old age!)

Sunny John

[Fluffywelshsheep]

many of my fruit bushes are showing willing with buds or green leaves but they are a little sheltered by a fence.

linz

btw to see if you bush (the ones with woody stem) are still alive use a thumb nail and scratch a very small piece to see if you see any green underneath the 'bark' if you get green then it's alive but if it is dark colour then that piece is dead.

Linz

[sellickbhoy]

the rhubarb and strawbs are all going great guns now!!

loads of rhubarb - and i've even started some off from seed that i hope to add to the patch next year. I'll keep it in a pot in the green house this year to get it going

i have a couple of strawbs in the house and i've already had flowers on them, think i'll get them moved out now along with the 40 or so others i have out there - which have all also sprung to life and are looking good :-)
i'm so excited!!!!