Tiny treats

Bushes filled with juicy fruit save space, give your garden a nutritious punch

Carol O'Meara, Special to the Rocky

Thursday, March 27, 2008

If you long to pick plump, ripe fruit fresh from the garden but don't have much space, put small fruit into the plan.

Succulent in reds, purples and golds, berries seduce the most finicky palate at a fraction of the space trees require, yet their allure goes beyond popping them in your mouth and savoring their sweetness.

"Small fruits let you look at beauty and taste it, too," says Scott Skogerboe, a North American Fruit Explorer and head propagator at Fort Collins Wholesale Nursery. "When you grow your own, it's exciting to watch them get riper every day. You wait for the moment when they're ready."

Berry plants are ornamental, their blossoms often as appealing as the food they produce. Many are three-season plants with spectacular spring-summer-fall color that look good planted along borders or edges of landscapes.

Easy to grow, small fruit love moist soils and sun. Put them in a sunny area, but give them plenty of mulch with a drip line running underneath to provide and conserve moisture.

Feed the soil before you plant, says Skogerboe, who grows 20 types in his yard in Fort Collins. "Small fruits are perennials and come back every year, so they benefit from compost worked into the soil. It makes for happy, healthy plants."

Weeds are a challenge for berry patches, especially grasses. Keep weeds from crowding your plantings and stealing water or nutrients from the crop.

Birds, deer, bears, rabbits and squirrels love fruit and can nibble up your crop before you can pick it. Mesh netting covering berry patches is ideal for keeping birds and squirrels away, but sturdier fencing is needed to dissuade deer or rabbits.

Use 36-inch-tall chicken-wire fencing with at least 6 inches bent outward and slightly buried in the ground to keep rabbits out. Raise a sturdier fencing 8 feet high to deter deer. If you live in bear country, small fruit may not be a good choice to plant.

(Ribes spp.): A medium-size shrub that bears clusters of fruit on two- and three-year-old wood.

Ripens: Midseason.

Use: Well-known for jams or jellies, tart currants also are excellent dried or fresh in dishes.

How: These tough natives thrive at elevations to 10,000 feet, but can struggle if heat rises above 90 degrees for several days in a row. They like sun, but put them in an area that gets some shade.

Pests to watch for: Imported currantworm (Nematus ribesii), a green, caterpillar-like sawfly with black spots, can chew off the leaves overnight. Currant Aphids (Cryptomyzus ribis) curl and blister leaves. Both are easy to control with insecticidal soaps or a strong jet of water.

Tips: Branches older than three years lose production, so keep currants producing by pruning old wood and allow new shoots to come up from the crown.

Varieties to try: Red Lake gives big yields of bright red currants; Blanca is for those who love white currants; adventurous foodies will love Alagan, a black currant better suited to sauces and jellies.

(Ribes grossularia): Smaller shrubs growing to 3 feet tall. They produce large, sweet, juicy berries.

Ripens: Late July into August.

Use: Pick ripe berries for fresh eating and tart green berries for baking or preserves.

How: Plant in full sun to partial shade with wind protection. Before planting, cut the canes to 5 inches long and sink them 2 inches lower in the soil than they previously grew, spacing them 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 feet apart.

Pests to watch for: European varieties may suffer from powdery mildew. Thin the newest canes to allow air circulation and decrease disease. Despite the name, the Currant Fruit Fly (Epochra Canadensis) is a problem for gooseberries. Adults lay eggs on fruit in spring, and larvae burrow into the fruit, causing it to turn red and drop.

Tips: Young wood is the most productive, so prune out three-year- old wood in early spring before buds swell.

Varieties to try: Comanche grows 3 feet tall and is a heavy bearer of fruit. But be careful: This variety is very thorny, which makes it better suited for gardens in areas visited by deer. Invicta delivers huge, sweet berries and are not as thorny as Comanche.

(Rubus idaeus) and (Rubus spp.) Bramble fruit that grows on arching canes.

Ripens: Late August until frost.

Use: Fresh eating, baking, dried, juiced, jams, jellies, sauces.

How: Give this perennial, which spreads by suckering, plenty of room to grow. Cut the tops to 6 inches tall, then plant 2 to 3 feet apart in spring. Support summer bearers with wire run 3 feet above the soil around the patch; fall bearers don't need support.

Pests to watch for: Raspberry cane borers (Oberea bimaculata) burrow through cane centers causing wilting and death of the plant. The Raspberry Crown Borer (Pennisetia marginata) also causes canes to die by tunneling through them and girdling at the crown. Remove and destroy all droopy, dying canes.

Tips: For easiest care, look for primo cane varieties, which fruit in fall on first-year canes and don't need winter protection. Mow down primo cane types in late winter to rejuvenate the patch, ensuring big yields year after year. Blackberry lovers will cheer for the new primo cane variety that dodges loss from winter kill if mulched.

Varieties to try: Heritage is a popular producer of medium-large, sweet red raspberries. If you want huge, deep ruby berries, try Autumn Bliss, a heavy producer that is sure to become a family favorite. Yellow raspberry fans will love Golden Harvest for its medium-size juicy fruit. Blackberry to look for is Prime-Jan.

(Fragaria x ananassa): One of the most popular small fruit in the garden; three types.

Ripens: Junebearers fruit all at once early in the season, then stop flowering or fruiting for the rest of the summer. Everbearers have a heavy crop early, then give smaller amounts through the remaining season. Day Neutrals consistently produce all season.

Use: Fresh eating, dried, jams, jellies, sauces, margaritas, baking

How: Deep, rich soils are what strawberries need, so work a lot of compost into a sunny area before planting. Plant Junebearers 2 feet apart in rows 4 feet apart; plant Everbearers and Day Neutrals 1 foot apart in three rows spaced a foot apart. Replace the straw mulch each spring to remove pests and disease.

Pests to watch for: Slugs and millipedes love the soft fruit as much as we do. To keep millipedes from bothering the berries, mulch to lift the fruit from the soil. Slugs can be controlled by placing small tubs of stale beer in the bed. Slugs, attracted to the yeasts, crawl into the beer and drown. Change the beer daily.

Tips: Because young plants fruit better than mature ones, change your strawberry bed every three years. Collect the young, rooted daughter plants in spring, remove the rest of the plants, till in compost and replant.

Varieties to try: Junebearers: Plant Honeoye for big crops of sweet berries. Everbearers: Ogallala has intensely sweet, medium strawberries, but if you want huge and tasty fruit, try Fort Laramie. Day Neutral: Tristar finishes the season in fall with loads of medium-size flavorful strawberries.