Fruit in the garden

We have just moved to a new garden, so we need to restock. In deciding on what fruit to plant, I am guided by my own taste buds. What do I love to eat and cook with?

A good few years ago, one of my roommates declared that he loved gooseberries (I'm indifferent), so I planted one. Every year it fruited, and no one ever picked any of the fruit. I suppose that the birds were grateful, but I learned a good lesson.

So far we have bought 2 blueberry bushes. This particular variety needs an acidic soil, so we have also bought some ericaceous compost to dig in. However, in doing some research on this, it sems like coffee grounds and tea leaves may have the same effect, so I will do some experiments with that.

We have ordered 2 apple trees from Seed Savers (www.seedsavers.ie), and a Conference pear. In marked contract, we have bought a pear tree, and a cherry tree from Lidl, it will be interesting to see which does better. According to my dear husband, who was dispatched to Lidl for the fruit trees, there was practically a riot over the apple trees, which is encouraging. The more people that are growing food, the better I like it.

We have a couple of strawberries growing in a planter. I'm hoping to convince one of my friends to pass on some alpine strawberry runners. And I'd like some summer fruiting, and some autumn fruiting raspberries. That will probably be enough fruit for now. Well, maybe a blackcurrant as well, just for the pleasure of pruning it.

This probably sounds like a lot, and indeed, we now have a large garden. However, in my tiny plot in Dublin, I had an apple tree, a pear tree, loganberries, raspberries, a red and a black currant bush. So don't be discouraged by lack of space. And in a lot of ways, fruit bushes require a lot less care than vegetables.