No fruit on our gooseberry and raspberry bushes

harib0uk

halight wrote: »

Hi its very funney you saying this because iv got two and i had them from the same place. Three years ago and iv never had and fruit off them not one.
I think thay muxt have been selling duff plants.

I dont know what to do to get fruit growing on them.

I do wonder about Wilkinson's, very cheap plants only £1 or £2 if I remember correctly, and I had to pick through some really bad ones to find ones that looked alive with a green shoot.

I'm just wondering if I need to be a little more patient or maybe feed them. Or if i should just give up on these and turn the pots over to something else, as I'm thinking about getting a blueberry bush.

milkybars

From my limited gardening/fruit growing experience but more anecdotal evidence... gooseberry bushes can take a few years to establish and even then don’t fruit every year. Last year we had two big mixing bowls full of gooseberrys (freezer was well stocked!) from the 25year old bush in the garden but this year there was just enough for a very small gooseberry crumble. So even once established they are quite variable.

We don't feed or water the gooseberry bush, just let it do it's own thing and give it a bit of a prune when it gets unruly!

RAS

Raspberries

These are not bushes, they are cane fruit a bit like blackberries and loganberries. However whilst those two produce long winding canes, rapsberries produce a single upright cane initially, which might produce anything upto about 5 good canes from the one stool when well established.

Really that is not enough to produce a useful amount of fruit. I started with 4 autumn fruiting canes to supplement a row where some of the summer canes had died out. I now have nearly 20 canes, from the original stools and escapees, and will be culling them this winter. This last two years they have produced a picking - about the size of a small supermarket punnet- a week.

I have some doubts as to whether raspberries are self fertile, as they are insect pollinated. Even if they are if you have very few flowers open it is possible that would not be pollenated properly.

Summer raspberries flower from May to July and autumn ones flower from September to November. it sounds as if ~Chameleon~ vbmenu_register("postmenu_12153177", true); has one of each?

You need to cut out any dead wood (not dormant - DEAD) and any canes that have flowered. Leave all the other growth until you can work out what you have actually got. Once you have identified the type of raspberry, then you can treat them appropriately.

Summer

Wait until they stop fruiting and during the autum cut out all the old fruited canes. Leave the new ones until next year. Also take out any very spindly canes and cut back the tips by about 6 inches. This encourages larger fruit.

This means that you always have some tall canes growing, because they fruit on last year's wood.

autumn fruiting raspberries,

leave until they stop fruiting in November/December and then cut the old canes to the floor. If well established you can cut them to about 2 foot and get a half crop just after the last of the summer rasperries on the old canes, but do not do this with new canes.

This means that from December to March/April , you have a bare patch from which your new canes sprout in the spring and then fruit later in the same year.

Feed both lots well with manure or compost plus seaweed.

Gooseberries

If you are not getting crops, then I would be inclined to feed and not to prune.

With respect to all the above, what sort of beneficial insect populations do you have in your gardens? I have definately noticed a drop in mine over the last ten years, but things have improved since I started growing flowers amongst my fruit - limnathes, soapwort and woundwort.

harib0uk

Ras thank you so much for taking the time to post such a detailed reply, please could I ask for a little more information

RAS wrote: »

You need to cut out any dead wood (not dormant - DEAD)

How do I know if the wood is dead?

RAS wrote: »

With respect to all the above, what sort of beneficial insect populations do you have in your gardens? I have definately noticed a drop in mine over the last ten years, but things have improved since I started growing flowers amongst my fruit - limnathes, soapwort and woundwort.

I have no idea what kind of insects are about - other than the tiny green caterpillars that keep eating the leaves of my gooseberry bush in the summer year after year. There are no flowers in the garden, only two bushes, one a box bush, I think, the other I don't know what it's called but has red berry's at the moment (not holly)there are also some bushes along the back fence with orange berry's which have nasty thorns, that's all other than a silver birch.

RAS

harib0uk wrote: »

How do I know if the wood is dead?.

AHH . Just on e of the things I kinda know - the wood is a different colour and the buds look different.

Do you still have any green leaves on your rapsberries?If so, cut out anything NOW that does not have green leaves? Alternatively wait until the spring and when the shoots just start sprouting on the canes, cut out those that do not sprout.

Or break an inch off the top of the cane and if it is green, it is live - leave it. If it is brown break off another inch and so on until, you get down half way and then cut the rest out?

harib0uk wrote: »

I have no idea what kind of insects are about - other than the tiny green caterpillars that keep eating the leaves of my gooseberry bush in the summer year after year. .

Think you have goosberry sawfly? In very hot summers they are not a problem - their depredations reduce the water loss from the plant and help it survive drought, but otherwise, kill. Either squash them, harvest and leave for the birds or apply a spray containg a very small amount of detegent which should reduce numbers.

harib0uk wrote: »

There are no flowers in the garden, only two bushes, one a box bush, I think, the other I don't know what it's called but has red berry's at the moment (not holly).

Could be serveral things. If it has berriesm, it must flower? When?

harib0uk wrote: »

there are also some bushes along the back fence with orange berry's which have nasty thorns, that's all other than a silver birch.

Pyracantha probably - spiky with bunches of small white flowers followed by red or orange berries.

Think you would benefit from a few bee-friendly flowers to attract insects which help set your fruit bushes. Even welsh poppies and poached eg plant would help.

harib0uk

RAS wrote: »

AHH . Just on e of the things I kinda know - the wood is a different colour and the buds look different.

Do you still have any green leaves on your rapsberries?

Yes there are, will go see tomorrow what I can do.

RAS wrote: »

Or break an inch off the top of the cane and if it is green, it is live - leave it. If it is brown break off another inch and so on until, you get down half way and then cut the rest out?

This is what I was thinking but didn't want to trial and error with it

RAS wrote: »

Think you have goosberry sawfly? Either squash them, harvest and leave for the birds or apply a spray containg a very small amount of detegent which should reduce numbers.

YES! Sawfly of the Columbine variety having google imaged sawfly as they look like these:
http://bp1.blogger.com/_hOdsjwLqJ4o/RzR-GdjukEI/AAAAAAAACbc/qzWJkKAmRLo/s1600-h/sawfly1358.jpg
The Gooseberry ones have black spots on them but i guess there is not much between them!

The past two years I have picked them off, but the poor bush has still been stripped bare. Having had a read, it seems i am better off with these oneS as they only have one generation a year, where as the gooseberry ones have three generations!

The info I have found:

Regularly check the plants from mid-April onwards for sawflies and pick off the larvae by hand.
Alternatively, spray when young larvae are seen with an insecticide approved for use on gooseberry/currants. Suitable insecticides are thiacloprid (Provado Ultimate Bug Killer Ready To Use) or an organic pesticide such as rotenone* (Bio Liquid Derris Plus*) or pyrethrum (Py Garden Insect Killer, Scotts Bug Clear Gun for Fruit & Veg, Gem Stop Bugs or Doff All in One Bug Spray).
* Rotenone/derris-based pesticides are being withdrawn from sale in September 2008 (date to be confirmed). Gardeners can continue using up rotenone/derris-based products for 12 months after the final selling date.

The best control is to examine the bushes carefully in late April, looking for the eggs or the early larval stage low down in the centre of the bush.
Repeat in early June, July and late August when later generations could be starting. Crush any eggs or larvae, and pick off any leaves showing the small holes made by the first instar larvae as they will probably be still there. It helps to prune the bushes in an open manner or train them as cordons, so that inspection is easy. They survive the winter as cocoons in the soil around the base of the bush, so clearing away debris and mulch in the winter, and disturbing the soil will allow the birds to find them.
When the early signs are spotted remove the affected leaves to ensure all of the eggs and larvae are cleared.

A spray of derris, particularly to the undersides of the leaves when the small larvae are found, and repeated after two weeks, should clear up one generaton. There is no biological control.

RAS wrote: »

Could be serveral things. If it has berriesm, it must flower? When?

Pyracantha probably - spiky with bunches of small white flowers followed by red or orange berries.

Think you would benefit from a few bee-friendly flowers to attract insects which help set your fruit bushes. Even welsh poppies and poached eg plant would help.

Again looking at google images the orange berried one is a Pyracantha, the other one flowers in the spring and has white flowers, and the Bee's love it! Always lots of them hovering around the bush - Apparently the common name is cotton easter. Just thinking, as well as the bees when the cotton easter is in blossom, we do get a lot of ladybirds.

I do like poppies and they seem to be easy to grow so might put some of them in a pot between the two bushes....Poached egg plant! never heard of those before but they do look really nice as well. Will have to look at getting some seeds! thank you !