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I'm going to convert a wired enclosure (the old pond) into a fruit cage.
Can't give you measurements but it quite big and high.
My question is, if you were starting a new fruit bed for soft fruit, what plants would you grow in it and how many of each. Not cherries!!!
I aim to get it converted and planted over winter and to be picking fruit, safe from the birds, next summer.
Well the obvious answer which you already know is those which you like the most that the birds steal the most of.
I have no time or space for a fruit cage right now, but I notice the red currants are ransacked most by the birds but our black currants and gooseberries tend not to get attacked at all. I don't mind losing red currants as I prefer the others, I also planted strawberries under the bird feeders a few years ago for the birds and as ground cover.
Ive always understood fruit cages were for those fruit that you desperately want that the birds also take in large numbers.
Raspberries in mine - plus a couple of blackcurrants.
The birds stripped my red gooseberries two days ago. Went out with a bowl to pick them and every one had gone.
(11-07-2022, 10:12 PM)Farendwoman Wrote: [ -> ]Raspberries in mine - plus a couple of blackcurrants.
The birds stripped my red gooseberries two days ago. Went out with a bowl to pick them and every one had gone.
This is what has happened to me for the past few years! Ripped them all out in the Autumn.
i love black currants / and raspberries/ so that's what I would put in a cage
Same with my gooseberries this year. They were ripening beautifully, a couple of days later they were all gone.
The downside of gooseberries in a confined space is the prickles.
Raspberries, blueberries, strawberries. I have all mine netted, but the thrushes and blackbirds bombard the raspberries net to get the ripe berries near the nets
I’d have and still considering doing this.
Red currants 2 or 3
Black currant 1
White currant 1
Blue berry 1
Raspberry canes 2 or 3
Gooseberry 1
Strawberries 8 to 10
All the ingredients you need to make red currant jelly, strawberry & chilli jam and the occasional summer fruits pudding when his family tunes up.
Mine will probably just be the red currant and strawberries. The rest can take their chances in the hedgerow.
Our 2 cages have raspberries, strawberries - both as you know will multiply and fill the space up if you let them - 2 blackberry bushes, one in each, neither very productive, a red gooseberry a green gooseberry, a blueberry (its friend died and I'm considering whether to replace it) and 2 redcurrant bushes. Quite frankly if it wasn't for P, I wouldn't bother with anything other than strawberries, autumn raspberries and perhaps blueberries. The others are too tart fresh and I don't do desserts very often.
I'd go with raspberries and strawberries really anything that's red.
Yesterday I caught a Blackbird eating toms inside my GH
they won't get in again I've hung debris netting on the door, then charity shop net across the auto vents and louvers.