What can I plant underneath my fruit bushes?

ALIBOBSY

OK making plans for the garden and thinking of moving some stuff around.
At the moment we have a space at the top end of the garden, opposite my greenhouse where we didn't put in a raised bed. It has 2 compost bins on it (and a few weeds ) as it was one area we didn't get around to (we did make 6 raised beds and put up a greenhouse lol).

Anyway we have a space at the side of the house where we want to move the compost to (have a third bin ready as well and want the bins together out of the way).
So this leaves us a space against the fence which gets alot of sun (practically bakes all day in summer) so we are thinking dig it over and create an extra bed. We have a number of fruit bushes some in pots some in the ground that we would like to put together in a fruit bed and thought the sunny spot would suit.

My question is can I plant anything under the fruit bushes, both to keep weeds down and for extra production?

OH suggested pumkins as they take up so much room, but grow close to the ground, but not sure if they would have a bad effect on the fruit bushes. Obviously we would need to feed the bed well (have some homemade compost and can get some manure) to feed both, but is there anything else to consider? or any other produce which we could grow for the same effect?

ali x

evie451

Alibobsy you were busy with all those beds and a greenhouse i tried a version of what you are thinking of called the 3 sisters, basically the pumpkin/squash family plant is at ground level then you plant sweetcorn and peas/beans.........the peas use the sweetcorn to climb up and the pumpkin/squash keeps all the weeds down and the giant leaves also help retain moisture because they shade the earth, this might be quite good if its a really sunny corner.......i suppose what you are doing is a version of that but with fruit canes instead of peas and corn? They are one of the hungriest plant families though so quite a lot of feed i would think.....

This worked really well for me last year and i got loads of courgettes and sweet dumpling pumpkins from the plants and the peas n corn produced well too.....

Lotus-eater

Mulch is a very good thing to grow under fruit bushes

I would think no tbh, but why don't you try it and see which way produces the best results?

cootambear

strawberries

squack

cootambear wrote: »

strawberries

yes especially the wild ones with small fruit that taste of bubble gum:money:

conradmum

Yes, I was going to suggest alpine strawberries which aren't too hungry and will cope with some shade from the fruit bushes. They'll also hopefully self-seed.

Other than that pumpkins are actually a great idea imo, because you can have the root as far away from the bushes as possible so as not to compete for nutrients, while the stems and leaves of the plant will ramble everywhere and provide excellent weed control.

If your bed is quite acidic you could grow cranberries, which spread. Not as good at weed control as pumpkins, though.

Don't have euphorbia from next doors' garden, which is what's currently invading my fruit bushes. :rolleyes:

valentina

Bob Flowerdew recommends the poached egg plant (limnanthes douglasii), which is a weed suppressing, low-growing, self seeding hardy annual. Also it attracts beneficial insects like hoverflies. Unfortunately not a crop though!

ALIBOBSY

Hmm some interesting ideas. Unfortunately we already have a strawberry bed and some every bearers (like the alpines) in hanging baskets so don't really want any more.

We are thinking put the root of the pumpkin up the corner where the compost bins are now (so the ground should be rich to start with) and plant the fruits further along.
I was more concerned that the pumpkins might somehow poison the bushes as they do say about not planting certain plants together, but if the only issues are water and food competition this I may give it a whizz this year.

Next year will probably just go for a manure mulch, but this year as the ground has had alot of weeds on it and grass prior to that, we need to really cover the ground.
If the fruit bushes struggle can always pull up the pumpkins. Already decided they are too big to put in any of the other beds, the one we grew last year was massive and we got 2 lovely pumkins off it.

Will post back if it works lol.

ali x