Planting fruit - now or February?

redser7

Hi - I want to plant Tayberry and Blackberry plants at the allotment (maybe Japanese Wineberry too). I want to use a local nursery I've used before. The lady there tells me she will have her plants in in February. I read that now is the best time to get them into the ground so they are well established come spring. Would it make much of a difference to wait until February? Thanks for any advice.

Ophiopogon

I would of said plant them now as the ground is still warm and your right that they would be more estabilsed against competing plants/weeds.

Did she say why she waits till Feb?

redser7

Thanks. Nope. She's digging up trees now and soft fruit will be available in February. Maybe she just can't source them yet. It's a small setup but she supplies the local allotments and people speak highly of her. Very nice lady.

Ophiopogon

I just looked into this a bit as I wanted to make sure. It looks like blackberries like to be planted in mild weather so she is right about the Spring.

I would say though to make sure to warm the ground up before planting and they like trenchs as well, presume re irrigation.

I was just trying to remember if I have ever planted soft fruits and I realised that I always lived in a house that had wild bushs in or just outside the garden.

Where are you/she based, I like to support the smaller grower/sellers, if she was close to me.

redser7

Thanks for the reply. Donabate, she's just off the main roundabout on the way in.

redser7

So I popped up to get a Bramley and she now has the bareroot soft fruit in stock. Apologies if it looks like a blatant plug, I have no connection here but I can't recommend this place highly enough. I wasn't able to source bare root soft fruit anywhere else in North Dublin so this is an FYI if you are looking for some and don't want to trust and wait on mail order. She has all the usual stuff and generally they are 3 or 4 euro a plant.
Picked up a nice bramley M26 for 16 (freshly dug up for me and should bare fruit in autumn this coming year), Whinham's Industry Gooseberry for 3, a couple of Timperley Early rhubarb stools for 2 each, Tayberry for 4, Loch Ness blackberry for 4. She has raspberry canes for 90 cents each, but I picked up some summer fruiting canes 'with' established 1 year old canes on them for 2 euro each (so garaunteed a crop this summer!). She was full of tips and information and we had a great chat, now that's what I call customer service. Good tip was to grow the raspberry canes as a self-supporting wigwam in a triangle of 3 plants. Her supplier trialed it last summer and was amazed at how successful it was. Swears it bares more fruit and as a bonus it saves a lot space and the hastle of setting up post and wires.

wait4me

redser7 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. Donabate, she's just off the main roundabout on the way in.

Called there today and as redser7 says - what a nice and informative lady! Picked up a few barerooted tayberry and loganberry plants which are now firmly planted in my garden.

sirpsycho

Soils temps are below normal now so I would expect all grow to be pretty much on hold now?

See: http://www.met.ie/latest/agricultural.asp

So perhaps planting in feb would be the same as planting now?

redser7

Cheers. Yeah at this stage I guess it probably wouldn't make a difference.