Fruit Cage - spacings and paths

[rainbow1]

Hello everyone

I am planning a fruit cage for our brand new allotment and as I've never grown fruit I'm after some advice. I plan to start with five currant/gooseberry bushes and some raspberries.

Obviously I'll need to leave space around everything to harvest, prune, etc but the question is how much? I've read that I'll need to leave 5ft between rows of raspberries but how far in from the edge of the cage should I plant them? And how far in from the edges should I plant the currant bushes & how far apart?

Any help gratefully received!

Thanks

[rainbow1]

Any thoughts anyone?

[lynda66]

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...elp_26404.html this might help?? ..... just make sure you can get through the prickly things

[rainbow1]

Thanks Lynda

I think what I'm going to do is leave a 50cm path between the edge of the cage and the edge of the bushes and about the same between the bushes. I love raspberries and so I知 going to grow loads of them down the middle of the cage. I値l probably put down some paving slabs to stand on between the bushes.

I知 planning to use the ideas from other posts about home made poly tunnels and make a structure out of water pipe and steel rods covered in netting so it値l have straight sides and a curved roof. I guess over all it will be about 4.8m x 6.5m.

Do you think it値l work?

[tootles]

I have my rasps in two double rows 50 cm aprt in the rows and about 1.5m between the two double rows. I had planned to have about a 1m path around the outside, within the cage but I haven't yet built the cage. I had no trouble from birds last year (just the dog). Rasps do get quite bushy - particularly the summer fruiters that don't get pruned too much each year.

[lynda66]

can't see why not,netting weighs less than plastic sheeting ....... i'm using the flower arches, cos i got them with 75% off at wilkies, so they were abouut ｣1.50 each, am hoping to be able to make them wider by putting an extra bit in the top

i'm going for the raspberries along one side along the fence, so i don't need to put netting down one side, then a path down the middle ...... though i might have a cage each side of the garden cos theres nothing earmarked for the bed there, and it means i have less lawn to dig up.

i reckon it should be ok, just tie back any dangling branches back off the path

[rainbow1]

thanks both. i'll keep you posted with progress.