making a raspberry wall

Not a wall made from raspberries, that would be silly. In order to try and contain some of the raspberry canes and stop the plants from suckering up all over the place I dug a narrow trench at the front of them and cut out all the roots on the ‘wrong’ side. Then I placed vertically in the trench some offcuts of fascia board that I scrounged a while ago. Hopefully this will stop the roots from trying to take over the border and will allow me to plant some spring bulbs along the front. If they go the other way they’ll end up in next door’s garden and they’ll get free raspberries.

There is still fruit on the canes but it's not worth picking now. I managed about 100g yesterday but they are sour and lacking in flavour even though they look ripe.

they look ripe but are not worth picking so the birds can have them

In my desire to get this garden as productive as possible as quickly as possible I’ve tended to just stick plants in wherever I could. This has resulted in things like blueberries in large pots dotted about between blackcurrants and strawberries. Now the blueberries and cranberries are to have their own bed filled with their own acid compost. This is one of those cases where peat-free isn’t always best. The natural habitat for these plants is peat bogs so that’s what you need to try and replicate if you want good results.

We had a visit from a great spotted woodpecker this afternoon, the first one I’ve seen since we moved over here. Now that the trees are without their cloak of leaves it’s much easier to see what's flitting among the branches.