You Can Grow Fruit Crops

By Steven Biggs
Gardener, Garden Writer, Garden Coach, Horticulturist

I grow these fruit crops in a partially-shaded corner of my yard. It’s a dryish spot, with a nearby cedar hedge greedily sucking up moisture. But I still have lots of berries to eat and freeze, despite the location.

You can too.

Grow fruit in your own garden with these three easy crops.

• Raspberries
• Elderberries
• Red currants

Let’s simplify watering for these crops: They have more extensive root systems than annual garden vegetables, so they don’t require daily watering. If there is a very dry spell, water them well a couple times per week—otherwise, don’t bother.

OK, let’s grow fruit crops. Here’s how you can do it.

1. Raspberries

Raspberry plants are prolific, giving you fruit—and eventually extra plants—to share with friends. Best of all for urban gardeners, they tolerate light shade. Regular raspberries fruit in the early summer. Everbearing ones fruit in the early summer, then again in the fall. Don’t limit yourself to red raspberries—there are yellow, purple, and black raspberries too.

• Planting: You can plant raspberry canes in the spring or fall. Incorporate lots of organic matter like compost or peat moss into the soil for best results. I planted mine at a two-foot spacing—and they have now made a solid row.

• Maintenance: Raspberries have a perennial root system, so you do not need to replant them once established. The stems, called canes, live for two years then die, with new canes shooting up from the roots every year.

  Raspberries will try to grow outside the row or corner you assign them. Simply chop off any suckers that shoot up outside the designated area.

  There are two approaches to a raspberry patch: Low maintenance and high maintenance. I’ve friends who tie up individual canes, which grow in neat orderly rows; and I have other friends who have a completely untended patch. I’m in the middle, with rows (but wide rows), and I don’t tie up individual canes.

  Raspberry pruning is simple. Regular, summer-bearing raspberries fruit on second-year canes. After fruiting, you prune these canes to the ground.

  But everbearing (fall) raspberries produce fruit on first-year canes too (in the late summer or early fall). There will be a second crop of fruit on these canes the following summer. So if you want only fall fruit, prune out these first-year canes after harvest, forcing the plant to direct energy towards new canes for the next fall crop. If you want both a summer and fall crop, allow the canes to grow for the second season: They will produce a second (albeit smaller) crop in the early summer of the second year.

  You can minimize weeding in the raspberry patch by mulching. I mulch with compost.

• Harvest: Because I let my everbearing canes produce in the fall and again in the early summer I get two smaller crops, enough for eating fresh, but not to freeze. I eat fewer now that my toddler has learned the whereabouts of the plot—and I often catch her there grazing on raspberries.

• Tip: If you see that the cane tips are girdled with two rings, it means you have bugs called cane borers. Remove the wilted tips below the lower ring—then discard (you don’t want to keep these bugs near your raspberry patch).

2. Elderberries

I’m surprised more people don’t grow elderberries. They grow in a forlorn corner of my garden that is dry and partially shaded, yet they thrive. Don’t just think of edible berries, think of elderflowers too. Yes, elderflower cordial and elderflower champagne are two very nice drinks you can make from the flower of the elder.

• Planting: Spring or fall are the best times to plant elderberry bushes. I brought mine from a friend’s farm in mid-July and thought I’d killed it... It died back to the ground but bounced back. They are tough.

• Maintenance: Next to nothing. The only thing I do is occasionally trim out a few dead branches.

• Harvest: When the bunches of white flowers have just opened, pick a few to make cordial or champagne. With an established elderberry bush you will have enough flower clusters for both your elderflower and elderberry recipes.

  Pick the fruit clusters when the fruit have turned a blackish-purple colour—don’t pick when they are still greenish. The challenge is to let them ripen but get them before the birds move in. If you like birds, another advantage of an elderberry bush is that it will attract lots of them.

  I freeze whatever berries I don’t use fresh. They are a good addition to homemade juice made with red currants.

• Tip: Don’t eat green berries. There are often a few green berries mixed in the clusters of ripe fruit. Discard these berries, as the unripe fruit can cause sickness .

3. Red currants

I dread red currant season, not because I don’t like the flavour and many uses of the fruit—but because my half dozen bushes yield a lot of fruit, and it’s a big job picking it all.

• Planting: A sunny site is best, but currants will tolerate partial shade too. This is another great crop for urban gardeners.

• Maintenance: Red currants are produced on old wood, so the goal when pruning is to develop a long-lasting branch structure that is well spaced. After harvest, prune your bushes, removing weak, thin stalks arising from the base.

  Even a forgotten bush will grow fruit. My neighbour has an old bush that pokes through the fence, giving a decent harvest despite its age and lack of pruning.

• Harvest: Red currant fruit form in clusters. Pick the whole cluster, and then remove stems later (although you can leave the stems if you are making juice or jelly, as you will strain them out).

• Tip: I freeze the currants, with stems, then make juice throughout the winter. They also make a wonderful sauce to accompany rich meats.

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