Fancy a few raspberries this summer? Or a summer pudding or two? All you need – besides the culinary skills – is a handful of fruit bushes, and nature will do the rest. Believe me, you can’t really go wrong. Fruits such as redcurrants, blackcurrants, whitecurrants, gooseberries and raspberries are so reliable that, come the summer, your freezer, cooker and friends will be groaning under the sheer volume of fruit-related recipes that you’ve conjured up.

Even if you only have room for the odd plant or two, you will be amazed by how much fruit a little bush can produce once it’s settled in – and currants will grow well in pots if you are really stuck for space.

Unlike strawberries and fruit trees, which tend to need a bit of TLC, soft fruits are easy to grow. They don’t fuss too much about having perfect weather when in flower, whereas peaches, apples and pears suffer a bad fruit set if they get frosted when in bloom. And soft fruits generally produce in abundance with the minimum of effort – my kind of plant.

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If possible, choose a site that has some sun during the day – it undoubtedly produces more abundant crops and helps them ripen – but full sun is by no means essential. I’ve grown wonderful currants in a north-facing, predominantly shaded garden with no trouble at all. Ideally, a bit of sun during the day is good for them, as is a rich, moist soil. Raspberries especially need good, enriched soil to produce excellent crops for years, but blackberries and currants are more forgiving if your soil isn’t the best. If only other plantswere as accommodating…

HOW TO PLANT

All these fruits can be planted now, but remember, these plants will be in the ground for a long, long time, so treat the earth accordingly. Don’t stint on a thorough digging over, spend some time forking up all the perennial weeds and adding in garden compost or other organic matter – you won’t regret it.

To plant blackberries, currants and gooseberries, dig a hole larger and deeper than the root system, and loosen the base with a fork. Work a forkful of garden compost into the hole and a trowelful of bone meal (marvellous stuff for the roots), and set your plant in the hole, spreading out the roots. Backfill with soil, giving the plant a shake to settle soil around the roots, and firm in with your feet.

Raspberries are best planted in a pre-prepared trench. Dig a trench one spade or so deep by three spades wide, and break up the bottom with a fork, adding a 10cm (4in) layer of garden compost or well-rotted manure and a trowelful of bone meal for every 1m (3ft) of length. Backfill and leave to settle for a couple of weeks, then plant the raspberry “canes”, as they’re sometimes called, at the correct spacing (see below) with a spade, firming them in with your feet.

HOW MANY TO PLANT?

Currants and gooseberries can be planted together in a row as they grow to roughly the same size at the same rate. Space your plants about 1.5m-2m (5ft-6ft) apart, and don’t be deceived by their size when they’re young – they will get bigger and branch out more. I grow mine in a little informal hedge at the shady end of my allotment, and it’s ideal as I can get to both sides easily for picking. As you can expect to get 10lb of fruit or thereabouts from each bush, you’ll probably find you don’t need that many. We have four blackcurrants, three redcurrants and three gooseberries.

Raspberries form a dense thicket of a row in summer, and are planted close together with only 35cm-45cm (14in-18in) between each plant. It’s best to stick to one type of raspberry – either summer or autumn fruiting – in a single row as they’re pruned slightly differently and it keeps things simple. Reckon on about 1½lb of fruit per 30cm (12in) of row. Blackberries can produce a whopping 30lb of fruit per plant in a good year and are well worth the space, especially as you can train them up a shed, wall or fence. Choose a thornless variety as the prickly ones are harder to handle.

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