Page 18 - ALG Issue 3 2016

Feature on...
Fruit
Focus –
Soft Fruit
By the time you are reading this, we should be nearing the end of a soft fruit glut. Soft fruits include blackberries, blueberries, bilberries, goji berries, gooseberries, lingonberries, raspberries, strawberries, currants and gooseberries. To get your feast of berries, you will no doubt have
had to put up a ght with birds and other pests that love the sweet juicy avour of homegrown berries.
Hybrid soft fruit varieties are becoming increasingly popular, as people are always on the lookout for the best fruit variety
they can nd and new avours to taste. Varieties include wineberries, boysenberries, tayberries, loganberries, jostaberries (gooseberry/blackcurrant cross). You can also buy unusual varieties such as ‘blueberry pink lemonade’, which are not hybrid but are certainly different to the usual blueberry as they are pink in colour! Some varieties of blackberries, gooseberries or loganberries have been bred to be thornless, which
is perfect if you have a tendency to prick yourself whilst harvesting your fruit.
If you are looking to buy any soft fruit bushes, canes or vines, now is the time to order them as many online websites will despatch them late autumn for you to plant. Although each soft fruit variety is different, you can usually plant them in the ground
(or pot) in autumn time for them to begin establishing their roots. It is not likely that you will get a good crop in the rst year of your soft fruit as most of the plants effort will go into establishing roots, but in the second year you should begin to get a decent crop (depending on the soft fruit variety). For more detailed cultivation information, visit the Growing Advice section of the Society’s website.
Not only do berries look pretty when growing and provide pollen for bees, they
are also very versatile to eat and the majority freeze well. Goji berries are often referred
to as a superfood and can be eaten on breakfast cereals or in smoothies. Other fruits can be eaten this way, but also as a compote, pancakes, tarts, souf é, sorbets, muf ns, jams, tray bakes, tri es, sponge cakes and a lot more. So, if you’re still struggling with a glut of soft fruits, why not bake something up for a loved one to enjoy? Beth Cowan
Image supplied by Kings Seeds – Blackberry Karaka
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