preparing ground for rasps & strawbs

[GeordieVik]

It's time at last! My fruit plants are due to arrive in 1.5 weeks time.

I'm planning on going up to the lottie to remove any new weeds from the prepared beds, and was thinking of digging in some fish, blood & bone and some grit to help give them a good start.

Does this sound like a good idea, or over the top?

Opinions appreciated...

Vik

[jlottie]

Hi Geordie

I dug the area for my rasberries as deep as I could and incorporated loads of manure, they get a good dose of manure each year and as much mulch as I can find for summer. Strawberries like lots of manure too as they are greedy plants so I would do the same for them but you probally don't need to dig so deep.

Just ordered some jostaberry bushes so if anyone has any tips for them, it would be appreciated.

jl

[Dobby]

HI All I finally got on the computer before Mrs Dobby
I have also started on the rasps and strawbs bed, digging, digging and more digging. Going to move the rasps into a line, with support trellis for them to trail across, early then late fruiting and then move the strawbs along the other side of the bed! Hopefull have it done tomora. Then have another fire with all the weeds we've been and dug up

[Snadger]

It's time at last! My fruit plants are due to arrive in 1.5 weeks time.

I'm planning on going up to the lottie to remove any new weeds from the prepared beds, and was thinking of digging in some fish, blood & bone and some grit to help give them a good start.

Does this sound like a good idea, or over the top?

Opinions appreciated...

Vik

I am no expert on rasps but I would have thought Bone meal alone would have been better!
The bone meal has some slow acting nitro and phosphate which will be good for root growth. As far as I know the fish and blood are both Nitrogenous fertilizers which help leaf growth. Nitro is leached quickly from the soil and by the time the plants started into growth in Spring it would have already disappeared
If you already have the FBB it wouldn't do any harm to use it tho!
Just my opinion!

[GeordieVik]

Thanks all.

Snadger, I suppose I was asking in case one of you said "for god's sake, don't use FBB on rasps!! You'll kill them!" or similar. As a novice, I'm not always sure!!

I went up to the lottie this afternoon and forked a generous amount of FBB in, covered the strawb beds with membrane, dug the rest of the patch over again to let the frost in. Now I just sit & wait for the delivery man. I think I'll pop some manure (bags of dry stuff bought from garden centre) in when I plant them, too. Then see what happens! I'll possibly sprinkle a bit more FBB & some mulch on in Spring to give them a good start to the growing season.

A lovely lottie neighbour gave me 3 of her surplus blackberry canes this afternoon too, so I've put them in.

Now getting excited over what veg seeds to buy for next year.

My OH thinks I'm bonkers!

Vik

[rustylady]

For goodness sake don't go mad on the feeding. If the soil is reasonably good they will be fine. By all means dig in compost or manure when making the beds, but too much fertiliser will make for soft growth which is much more prone to pests and diseases

[Earthbabe]

Glad to read about the bone meal. I picked up a 10kg tub in Homebase for £3.99 thinking it would be useful. I presume it's good for all soft fruit.

[Snadger]

Glad to read about the bone meal. I picked up a 10kg tub in Homebase for £3.99 thinking it would be useful. I presume it's good for all soft fruit.

As far as I know its good for anything as a base dressing because it is very slow release. Not sure about ericaeris? plants tho, heathers, blueberries etc

[nick the grief]

Bonemeal is good for getting plants established as its high in Phosphates which promotes root growth. What you want for fruiting is High potash feeds - like Tomirite etc. If you put too much potash on your soil it can cause problems eventually as it doesn't leach away & get used up by the plants but it will give a small amount of Nitrogen as well.

[Earthbabe]

Thanks NTG. In other words it will be fine for planting out and transplanting my cuttings and trees.