Pods on Tayberry ???

[grahama]

Hi all,

was weeding the plants today and noticed on the top of the tayberry a pod type thing, I can only think is a flower or seed pod. It is on the growth from the supplied cane and a pic of it is here...



Also the tayberry plant with another pod visible at the top round and silloueted somewhat...



My questions are

1. should I have cut back the cane supplied as new growth is coming up
from below?

2. if so is it too late to do this with new canes growing?

3. What is the pod thing and should I take them off??

Thanks in advance,

Graham

[gojiberry]

Hi Grahama, Your plant looks to be in good condition and the pod like things are flowerbuds. They will give you a few fruit this year. The shoots emerging from ground level are the ones that will give you next years crop. There will be some that will tell you to prune out the shoots from last year I.E. the ones with flowers on, but tayberries are robust and will cope with the few flowers you have and also produce next years canes. I would give it a feed of Blood,fish and bonemeal and keep it well watered.

Ian

[Alison]

Tayberries, like summer raspberries fruit (and therefore flower!) on last years growth. Technically if it's a new plant it would be better to let it concentrate on growth this year rather than fruiting but I always ignore that as it's nice to have some the first year. Make sure you cut down old wood after it has fruited. I tend to train mine two directions, so that one side has last years growth which will fruit and the other has the new shoots. Makes it easy to harvest and prune as you know which ones to take, if you see what I mean.