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Order and plant unusual soft fruit this winter for a delicious summer harvest

Rasperry 'Black Jewel'   - www.alamy.com
Rasperry 'Black Jewel' - www.alamy.com

The leaves are off the soft fruit bushes now, which makes this the perfect time to expand your fruit garden in some unusual directions. 

Most raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, currants and rhubarb start life grown in a nursery field, directly in the ground, and are dug up during the dormant season – now. The most popular varieties that will always find a sale in the garden centres are grown in large numbers, but some growers also grow small numbers of more unusual varieties. 

This is the moment that all are dug up and either sold ‘bare root’ or potted up, so this is the time to track down those that you wouldn’t expect to find in the garden centre year-round. There are simply richer pickings at this time of the year.

'Hinnomaki Red' gooseberries - Credit: Yon Marsh Natural History/Alamy
'Hinnomaki Red' gooseberries Credit: Yon Marsh Natural History/Alamy

It is worth going to a nursery such as otterfarm.co.uk, chrisbowers.co.uk or blackmoor.co.uk that specialise in tracking down unusual and delicious varieties, such as sweet, red gooseberry ‘Hinnomaki Red’, black-fruited raspberry ‘Black Jewel’, or old Dutch rhubarb ‘Raspberry Red’. 

Bare-root plants must be planted pretty soon after arrival, and this can be a pain if the ground is frozen or waterlogged. Soak the roots in a bucket of water overnight, then pot them roughly and temporarily into a big bucket of compost until conditions improve. 

Containerised plants give you a bit more leeway, and you can wait until conditions are just right. Either way, improve the planting hole with well-rotted manure or compost first, and then sprinkle in a little mycorrhizal fungi on planting (Rootgrow for Fruit Trees and Bushes from gardeningexpress.co.uk). This works wonders by creating a network of symbiotic fungi that will help keep your hungry, thirsty fruiting plants well watered and fed for life. 

Water and mulch, then sit back and wait for your oddities to appear next season.