Rain and soft fruit - a plan!

[veggiechicken]

Thanks Lottie but its the rain that I need to keep off the fruit, I'm not that worried about the birds having some. I need a greenhouse the size of the garden!!
Thanks Buffs too - I'll grow some alpine strawbs as well

[fairynuff]

I'd go with the alpine strawberries idea - I switched this year and I have had continuous cropping since May, lovely sweet berries, just a bit smaller than my others - despite spending much of the year waterlogged despite my best efforts to drain their pots every day!

and yeh, I chose a bad year to start growing raspberries :/

[SarzWix]

My gooseberries have done marvellously this year, but my currants are practically non-existent after a late frost damaged all the leaf buds. They subsequently spent all their energy growing new leaves and didn't bother to fruit. My raspberries, on the other hand, are prolific. Although it is hard to pick them in the rain, I've been bunging them straight in the freezer, so it doesn't matter if they're a bit soggy. They'll still cook well, and should be good also for things like raspberry ripple ice-cream.

According to the Met Office, the jet-stream is on the move, so there's still a chance of a decent August for the later rasps.

[binley100]

I do hope so Sarz......since I moved plot I now have more Autumn Razzies than summer and am missing the glut I used to get a this time of year

[BarleySugar]

Sad to say the rain has taken it's toll on my blackcurrants too. Even the unripe ones were going mouldy. I've picked everything off, sorting as I picked, then having to go over them again when I got them home. I ended up with 5kg, but must have thrown the same amount away.
I've made 1kg of the ripest into cordial, 1kg into pectin stock for my strawberry jam (the greener ones), then the rest is jelly in progress. I really need a food grade bucket though! I've pressed all my large bowls into service and the kitchen looks as if there's been a bloodbath!
I need to get up to the plot to check the strawberries. Only the later ones left now. Again a lot have rotted, and I noticed the cherries are going the same way, before they are ripe too. Very few apples left on the trees, and the leaves are falling, I think they must be drowning . The only things of mine that don't seem affected are the raspberries.

[DuncanM]

How many blackcurrant bushes do you have for 5kg?!

I harvested my 4, 1 year old plants (grown from cuttings and first year fruiting too) and I only got 250g

Of which every currant had ripened and there wasn't any mould. All made it in to my vodka where they will sit for a few months

Fingers crossed next year the harvest will quadrouple.

[BarleySugar]

Hi Duncan, where abouts are you? I have 5 bushes, Ben Conan, planted out last summer from cuttings taken the winter before (I took 6 cuttings, and 5 rooted). They cropped really heavily this year and some of the currants were enormous. I'm waiting for OH to come back with the sugar, 3.5l juice for jelly, 1.8l for jam (sqeezings from the jelly bag). I'm going to put some chilli in the jam portion.

[DuncanM]

Agh so your bushes have a year on mine.

In Surrey, thought I'd updated my profile with that ages ago, best go do it now.

Checked on the vodka and it's starting to look like Ribena

My bushes are cuttings from 'Ribena' plants, from a competition some 7-8 years ago where you could win cuttings, mine are 4 from a friend (to whom I supplied the original cutting) - Ben Hope I believe.

[Loudbarker1]

UI agree with Kestrel. One wet year doesn't mean it will never be sunny again (though hearing the way some people are talking you would have thought that rain was unknown in the UK before this year!

[veggiechicken]

Thanks Kestrel and Loudbarker but this is not a reaction to this one year of rain, more to several years of rain just when the summer raspberries have been ripening (and have gone mouldy) - and their takeover bid in my garden. So its a replacement plan for some of the razzers with shiny fruits rather than more softies.
I have plenty of room for fruit of all sorts I love fruit

[BUFFS]

now after a few days sun we are picking 4/5 (smaller) ice cream tubfulls of raspberries for the freezer each day,and from 10 plants,the ones that didnt fruit last year,and i didnt cut them down,i ve never seen so many,just seems perverse,all this foul weather and they appear to love it,and the taste does not seem to have suffered,im waiting to see now how the late growing apples/pears will be affected by the lack of good sunlight for much of the year...