There is a particular kind of July evening when you stand by a raspberry row with a bowl that never quite fills, because every third berry goes straight into your mouth. Soft fruit is generous like that, and quick off the mark too. Autumn raspberries crop in the same year their canes come up, and a blueberry will live happily in a large pot by the back door for years. You do not need an orchard, or even a lawn, to eat your own fruit.

This book shows you how to grow blueberries, haskaps (honeyberries), gooseberries, red, white and black currants, jostaberries, raspberries, blackberries and hybrid berries such as tayberries and loganberries, along with aronia, elder, goji and a patch of strawberries. Each main fruit has its own chapter: how it grows, where it likes to live, how to plant and prune it step by step, when to pick it, which cultivars to look for and what tends to go wrong.

Around those sit chapters on the jobs every fruit garden shares, from choosing a site and testing your soil to keeping the birds off and storing what you pick.

What’s inside

• How each fruit carries its crop, and why that decides how you prune it
• Soil pH explained, including the acid soil blueberries need and how to provide it
• Buying certified, healthy stock, with planting times, depths and a spacing table
• Pruning bushes, canes and strawberries step by step, from the first winter to renovating a neglected bush
• Cordons, fans and standards, and how to build a post-and-wire fence that stays up
• Feeding, watering and mulching crop by crop, plus how to grow fruit in containers
• Netting that is safe for birds and hedgehogs, and fruit cages
• Pests and diseases, including spotted wing drosophila, vine weevil, mildews and viruses
• Raising new plants from hardwood cuttings, suckers, tip layers and runners
• Picking, storing, freezing and jam-making safely, with a month-by-month calendar, troubleshooting tables and a glossary

Who it’s for

It is written for beginners first, with every technical term explained when it turns up and three starter plans to show how the pieces fit together. Experienced growers will find the detail they want: RHS Award of Garden Merit cultivars, both RHS hardiness ratings and USDA zones where known, chill hours, and both sides given fairly where advice differs, such as whether haskaps and blackcurrants need a partner for pollination.

Fruit bushes are patient teachers, and most of them will forgive a clumsy cut, provided you remember the netting.

Shrubs