Strawberry
Learn the basics of growing your very own strawberries and raspberries.
What do you get when you cross a raspberry and a blackberry? The best of a both worlds - a loganberry! This fruit is named after the horticulturist James Logan, who accidentally created this hybrid. Loganberries have a slightly elongated shape like a blackberry, but are dark purplish-red, like a raspberry.
They’re incredibly juicy and worth growing at home, especially as they’re difficult to find in store. The canes can grow up to 2m tall and 3m wide, but they can be cut back to help keep them compact. For best fruiting potential, grow in cool-temperate or cold climates.
How to grow loganberries in a garden
- Choose a sunny spot with well drained soil and ensure there is protection from the hot afternoon sun and strong winds. Enrich the soil with Yates Dynamic Lifter Soil Improver & Plant Fertiliser. If the soil is clay based, add gypsum and fork in well.
- Install a trellis or support system, with wires running between two stakes at waist and shoulder height. This will help support the canes as they grow.
- Dig the planting hole twice as wide and to the same depth as the container. Remove the canes from pot, position two canes in the same hole and backfill with soil, gently firming down. If planting more than one plant, ensure you space them at least 1.5m apart.
- Water in well after planting to settle the soil around the roots and keep the soil moist for several weeks while the new plant establishes.
- Mulch with an organic mulch, such as bark chips, sugar cane or pea straw ensuring to keep it away from the canes.
- Feed in spring and summer with Yates Thrive Strawberry & Berry Fruit Liquid Plant Food.
- As the canes grow, loosely tie any fruiting canes to the top wire, and tie the newer canes (with no fruit) to the wire below.
- In autumn, cut back the older canes (the ones sitting on top) to ground level. Untie canes from the bottom wire and retie them to the second wire. Repeat this process yearly to help keep the canes under control.
Growing tips
Fruit can get spoilt from extreme heat and sunshine. Cover with shadecloth to protect the fruit – it also helps keep birds away from your harvest!
- Look out for thornless varieties of loganberry, which will create a much less painful berry growing experience!
Raspberry
Raspberries are so much better when picked fresh from the vine - grow one in your garden.
Blueberry
Blueberries are ideal fruiting plants for the home garden with their prune-able size habit, they are small enough to fit into any garden.
Blackberry
Blackberries (Rubus canadensis) are amazing to eat fresh from the bush or made into jams or pies.
Yates Dynamic Lifter Soil Improver & Plant Fertiliser
Create organic nutrient rich soil with Yates Dynamic Lifter for better root growth, stronger plants and more flowers and fruit.
Yates Thrive Strawberry & Berry Fruit Liquid Plant Food
Yates Thrive Strawberry & Berry Concentrate provides plants with the balanced nutrition they need to produce juicy, luscious berries and healthy green foliage.
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