Preparing Potatoes and Planting Currant Bushes

Currant Bushes

These fruit bushes really do provide a great crop when established and now is a great time to plant. Red and white currants are best suited to a light free draining soil, while black currants like heavier moisture holding clay type soil. You can adjust the type of soil you have, to accommodate both, by adding a combination of course sand/organic matter (manure, compost, straw etc.) to heavy soil to lighten it,  or leaf mould/manure to light soil to help retain moisture.

Plant the bushes in a sunny or semi shaded area about 4ft apart, and have the roots covered by about 3” of soil (as in diagram 1). Make sure they are well firmed in and secure. Prune the bush immediately, by cutting back each branch to about 6” long (as in diagram 2).  The idea is to encourage the bush to produce new growth; growth produced this summer will produce fruit next summer. Cut out all branches that have fruited each year (after picking!) to encourage the new growth again. Once established these plants will fruit for up to 20 years.

With red and white currents it’s slightly different, in winter cut back leading upright shoots by about half their length and all side shoots to 1”. In summer side shoots can be reduced to about 6 leaves, but don’t touch upright leading shoots

Potatoes.

If you have moved into a new house or haven’t been gardening, planting potatoes is a great way of improving the soil in your garden. The soil will be greatly improved even after one season, being more friable, as the potato is a great soil cultivator.  Potatoes do best in a rich, sandy loam that is moisture retentive but free draining. We’ll be getting into more detail when we come to plant in late march early April.

 Now we need to think about ordering the seed potatoes you require, and chitting them (getting them to sprout a little before planting). Calculate how much seed you’ll need first, ( you’ll get about 15 seed potatoes  per kg – and you’ll be planting 15” apart  , in  rows about the same distance apart)

Place your seed potatoes in egg boxes “rose end up” in a light, frost free airy location. If too warm or dark potatoes will sprout too aggressively.

     "Rose end" -top                       Stalk end - bottom                too dark or warm -
                                                                                                 aggressive growth.




Happy gardening.