Best time to transplant soft fruits?

[Samurailord]

I have a section of my new allotment that I have earmarked for the soft fruit and herb garden.

The only problem is that it is the most waterlogged section of the plot, with some standing water and lots of water-loving mares tail.

I am planning on digging a drainage channel to draw most of this water away, hopefully we can persuade the contaractors coming to repair the boundary fence to spend a few minutes with their machinery that would save me a day or so.

The question I have, is when is the best time to plant out soft fruit bushes, and should I wait until the water has been drained before planting?

I have three raspberries (one summer fruiting, two autumn), one blackberry and one gooseberry in pots at home, and a gooseberry in a raised bed that I want to move to the allotment, but I am not sure how to deal with them or when is going to be the best time to plant then out.

I am planning to use these bushes to start a cordon on the very edge of the plot, and use them to define what I hope will be a pleasant flagged seating area surrounded by fruit and herbs next to my raised pond.

This area will also eventually hold strawberries, red, black and white currants, rhubarb - lots of rhubarb, and loads of culinary herbs in beds below and in front of the various fruit bushes.

Any advice that you all can give will be gratefully accepted.

Andy

[FB.]

Waterlogged soil is a death sentence for most plants.
Flooded ground suffocates roots (roots are still active until the ground is colder than about 7'C). Suffocating roots - if they don't actually die from lack of oxygen - are then more prone to invasion by crown-rot fungi whose spores germinate in heavy ground.
Sometimes the fungus-infected root system can take a couple of years to finally die, with plants tending to show poor growth, small, colourful fruit and prolific flowering in the season or two before they finally succumb to the rumbling infection. There is no cure once infected.

So I would strongly recommend dealing with the drainage issue or using raised beds BEFORE anything gets planted.
Chances are that the soil is already packed full of phytophthora root-rotting fungi which thrive in heavy soil. The apple rootstock MM106 is extremely susceptible and a young tree on MM106 is so easily infected that it can catch crown rot simply on contact with infested soil and without waterlogging.
Rhubarb, strawberries and raspberries are also very easily infected.

In fact, many plants can die from crown rot - I know someone who lost a whitebeam tree and someone who lost a lilac bush to this disease.

[FB.]

Please re-read the above post because I tried to edit the above post but it took the best part of ten minutes and more information has been added!

My............internet.......................................connection.....is.............prone............................................to.....................

[Samurailord]

Waterlogged soil is a death sentence for most plants.
Flooded ground suffocates roots (roots are still active until the ground is colder than about 7'C).

Thanks FB

I had guessed as much, but I wanted to make sure before I dismissed the idea of getting them in early.

I am planning raised beds for the rhubarb and strawbs, and perhaps for some of the herbs too so I might just be able to get away with planting them out this year to over-winter.

Andy