Blackcurrant and other advice for newbie

[oldie]

I have never grown fruit before. Wife brought me back the complete selection of ALDI specials yesterday. I have absolutely no vacant space for them until I clear some more brambles/bindweed. I do have lots of florist type buckets. Will I be O.K. to plant all these in the buckets and then put in permanent position later in the year? How long could they wait and would multi-purpose compost be O.K?

[shirlthegirl43]

I have put mine in florist buckets in multi-purpose compost oldie. My reason was that we might be moving later in the year so I wanted to be able to take the fruit bushes with me. I would think they'd be fine in the buckets for a year or so - they aren't very big plants at the moment.

[veg4681]

I have never grown fruit before. Wife brought me back the complete selection of ALDI specials yesterday. I have absolutely no vacant space for them until I clear some more brambles/bindweed. I do have lots of florist type buckets. Will I be O.K. to plant all these in the buckets and then put in permanent position later in the year? How long could they wait and would multi-purpose compost be O.K?

I don't have enough space in my garden so I'm raising some of the fruit bushes in pots, currants in particular (black or white or red) as they're supposed to be suitable in pots. However raspberry, blackberry, tayberry and possibly gooseberry aren't suitable for growing in pots but in the first year they may be alright to allow them to develop good, well established root ball but I don't know about bare root (isn't that well developed already?). You could pot them up now while you're getting their bed ready.

You don't need to get the biggest recommeded size pot immediately (as you find in garden books) as it may be better to pot up as the plants get bigger and the florsit bucket is easily big enough I should think.

As for soil, I find the bought multi-compost too light on their own and may dry up quicker too so I add my own garden soil to give the balance right. My fruit bush packaging says to add bonemeal as fertiliser to the soil for most fruit except for blueberry (you must only use eicaceous compost).

[Nicos]

Hello - and welcome to the Vine!

[southlondongardener]

According to this
How to Grow Gooseberries

You can grow gooseberries in pots - although I tried and it died.

[rustylady]

Just make sure there are drainage holes in the buckets, otherwise the plants will drown.