9th Oct - Pirates Burying Treasure

Tuesday straight from work, Simon and I had our challenge cut out to attempt to build the next bed and plant two blueberry bushes. I had already got up in the early hours so that I could soak their pots for a good 12 hours before planting, so they were ready.

Having made a superb job of the first bed, Si set to work on the second bed which is smaller and a little easier to handle. It is a baby 4 metres x 80 cm bed and will be home to cane fruit. Unlike fruit bushes, which like the name suggests, are erm, bushes, cane fruit grow differently. They are part of the genus Rubus which includes roses. They send up shoots "canes" each year which flower and fruit. The following year new canes will shoot up and the old ones are cut back to the ground as their job is done. Where in the first fruit bed the bushes are planted with 1.5 metres between them, canes can be spaced at 0.5 metres in between each plant.

The plan is to set up a single post fence with several wires running the entire length of the bed. As the canes grow up, they get gently tied to the wires say to the left of the plant. This will help with harvesting and I should imagine will help with the whole process of old and new shoots. As new shoot come up, they can get tied to the right of the plant. Make sense?!

Anyway back to the build...Careful measuring out of the boards showed that my plans were indeed spot on. Between each bed (demonstrated by the flat boards in picture 1) will be a 50 cm wide pathway. It doesn't need to be any wider as its purpose is for walking around the beds and harvesting. No need for a wheelbarrow to move along these paths as that's what the large, central path is for (flag stones are temporary). So neat and so precise!

Light levels were starting to go, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, it is October after all. With the string guides in place, it was time to dig a hole! A massive hole to be exact as the first attempt wasn't big enough. A massive hole that was then watered and a complete bag of ericaceous soil was added and then some more. The first blueberry pot was placed in the centre to make sure it would be at the correct level and then following a top tip from Monty Don on Gardeners world, we poured the next bag of ericaceous soil around the potted plant. This is a super simple way of making sure your plant fits perfectly in the ground. You then simply remove the potted plant, remove the plant from the pot and it's then ready to re-insert into the hole you've left behind without its pot. Clever huh! (I'll take photos of this when the next one is planted).

Before popping the plant in the hole, I scattered some potash into the bottom and then gently placed the blueberry bush in its new home. To give it the best start we added more ericaceous soil and firmed it down. By now it was dark and we really did feel like pirates burying treasure ready to come back in the summer and collect our gold...ok blueberries.

So there it is. The first fruit bush in the ground and the first resident in Tahiti. Happy Days!