How to use fruit cages to protect homegrown soft fruit

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Where to put a fruit cage

Caring for your fruit cage

• Keep your cage well-weeded, especially the edges, because bindweed will travel up the sides.
• Remove the roof if your garden tends to get snow in winter. The weight can bend the poles.
• Many designs have tougher netting for the roof - always a good idea.

What to grow in a fruit cage

• Only grow fruit you enjoy eating.
• Always grow an autumn-fruiting raspberry. The heavy-cropping and flavourful ‘Autumn Bliss’, which crops between late August and late October, is still the best.  Cut all the canes away after fruiting.
• Grow two varieties of blackcurrant, an early variety plus a later variety.
• Blueberries will need to be container grown in ericaceous compost, unless you’re on acid soil.
• Prune your fruit bushes ands canes regularly, because well-pruned bushes get less disease and live longer.
• Feed your fruit in spring, using a potash-rich fertiliser such as Vitax Q4.
• Pick regularly, always on dry days, and use any surplus fruit by either making jam, or freezing it. Blackcurrants and raspberries make good jam and both freeze well.
• Always clear the site of perennial weeds before planting and improve the fertility by adding organic matter when planting.

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