The Unusual Fruit Garden Plant Collection

[The Unusual Fruit Garden]

For anyone interested in the videos, here are the 2 Tayberry I've planted, looking forward to some juice berries from these in the next few years (or hopefully sooner)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHcO_4zGWgI

[Scarlet]

Tayberries are huge plants and need 6ft if not more, space between them. How are you going to train them with them being so close together? Are your planters movable? Do you have drainage?

[veggiechicken]

. After just realising I have a Tayberry tree at work (it's Huge) I decided I had to grow my own as the fruit was delicious.

Tayberries are huge plants and need 6ft if not more, space between them. How are you going to train them with them being so close together? Are your planters movable? Do you have drainage?

UFG knows they're huge, Scarlet..........

[Scarlet]

I have one....it takes over the world. Pruning out old canes, tying in and growing up new year growth is difficult to manage.....with only 4ft planters I can't understand how this can be done.....the window above the planter my cause a problem too...you may not see out of it during the summer? The framework/training wires ideally should be I situ before planting up? How are you going to train them, I can't see a fan working here?
Personally I think one plant would struggle in a planter that small. The planter looks like it's flat on the ground, so Im also wondering about drainage? Do the planters move? I can't see any rollers etc? The width between planters isn't giving much room for the plants to grow out...how will you get between them?

[veggiechicken]

I have some too. The canes are massive - 10'-12' maybe and flop everywhere if not supported. Mine are on arches but, if I miss one, it tip roots and spreads. Not really a "tree" though.

[The Unusual Fruit Garden]

I'll have to post a picture of the one at work which I refer to as a tayberry tree as I know they aren't trees but this thing takes up an entire courtyard and must be close to 4x4m and I've been walking straight past, stepping over the falling fruit for years because I've always been told if you don't know, you don't eat it. It was only due to seeing some random members of the public popping in to pillage the tree that made me investigate what it was and hence start my fruit garden.

Yes the planters may be small but I am not trying to replicate what is at work and if anything, having less root space should reduce growth to a certain degree? If anything looks like it's outgrowing it's bed, it can always be moved into something else though. The planters are all on paving slab hard standing with a screen of gravel at the base of each so lots of drainage. I don't care about the window as that is the side of the garage which is that full I can't even get to the window from the inside. so no worries there and yes I will be creating some trellis/wire supports for most of my planters, the raspberries will need some too but as everything is still pretty dormant, there's no rush to go out in the rain to do it right now, when there's no growth to be supported as yet.

I realise a lot of the plants I've planted would ideally like more space than they have been given but I have done this for a reason, I don't ideally want to live where I am forever and would hate to create a full blown planted out fruit garden, to then move in a couple of years just as it all begins to bear fruit and to have to start all over again, so I've build 9 raised beds all sitting on hard standing so if I do move I can dismantle the beds and take everything with me. In the mean time, let everything develop, grow, fill the planters and produce what they can so we'll just have to see how it all grows I suppose. This is another reason I've knocked up a youtube channel, to document how well they all grow, both in my location (cold north east, brhhh..) and in their (relatively) restricted planters.

[veggiechicken]

I'd like to see a photo of the tayberry tree please. Are there lots of dead canes or does someone prune it each year?
I'm curious because it sounds more like a mulberry to me.

[The Unusual Fruit Garden]

The tree last summer
Winter state
See the stakes to the right
No more of this going to waste
Yum
It's on a council owned property so it gets cut back every so often

[veggiechicken]

Its a Mulberry, nothing like a tayberry!

[The Unusual Fruit Garden]

It may well be a mulberry, I have no idea what it is so I showed my 30+ year allotment owning, RHS orchid award winning parents some pictures and a stem but they didn't know either. They checked a couple of books going off the pics and stem and thought a buckingham tayberry so we went with that I did always wonder though considering the tayberry was only released in about 1979ish and this looks old and established in place.
I was tempted to grow a mulberry but heard they take stupid time to grow and produce so if that's what it is at work, then that saves me the job as the amount it gives off is stupendous , now I'm just hoping tayberry is just as nice (or nicer)...

[veggiechicken]

I wouldn't dream of disagreeing with your parents but if you google the growth habit of a mulberry and that of a tayberry you'll see the difference for yourself.

[Scarlet]

Tayberries are quite tart - better cooked than fresh really but I like them either way.

[Scarlet]

^^^^definately a mulberry - lovely trunk....and a very different plant to a tayberry which grows like a bramble.

[The Unusual Fruit Garden]

my parents could very well be wrong and thats perfectly fine, as I said we just didn't know and only had a quick flick through a couple of their books. The fruits all look so similar, thats the problem as I'd say that fruit looks the same as at work but needs another week to ripen purple a little more as the red ones at work are tart, but once purple they're sweeeeet. From what I've seen the mulberry seems to have a more central trunk, the picture doesn't show it well but this seems to be rooted from multiple sides of a sprawling trunk. I might try and get more clear pictures tomorrow, I keep meaning to do a video of it but I'd get strange looks out the window of other staff

[veggiechicken]

Since the mulberry is on council land they should have a record of what it is. It may have a tree preservation order on it because of its age.