Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 212
Growing Berries and Currants
Hello Everyone
On a hot summer’s day, if Auntie Alice knows that the children are somewhere in the garden but she can’t find them, chances are they will be in the middle of the fruit cage picking and eating sun-warmed, ripe berries.
There can’t be too many better places to be on a summer’s afternoon.
lt is a great garden tradition to grow soft fruits and Auntie Alice grows: raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, boysenberries and black, white and red currants as well as strawberries.
Growing berries is a lovely hobby to have.
Cultivated blackberries are much more juicy and delicious than the wild varieties. They are bigger too – maybe up to 4cm. These blackberries don’t have thorns, which means it is easier to pick the berries and the branches don’t catch your clothing as you walk past or reach into them.
Gooseberries are not quite so sweet and need to be picked when they are really ripe. The bushes can be grown into a fan shape against a wall if they need to be fitted into a small garden. The branches have thorns on them, so having a fan shaped-bush means the berries are easier to pick. The first prune should be done in June and the second in the middle of winter. lf you want to grow a gooseberry bush you may need an adult to help you with this pruning. Always look out for the prickles!
And if you have a really small garden, you can even grow some berry bushes in pots.
A good bush to choose for a pot is a blueberry. lf you have never eaten blueberries from a small box from a supermarket, you may have had them in a muffin.
A blueberry bush must be grown in ericaceous compost because they must have their roots in acid soil to thrive. Choose a big pot to plant your berry bush in because it will need plenty of room for its roots to grow.
lf you are using a terracotta pot, line it with cardboard or polythene to stop the water evaporating through the sides. Water them with rain water if you live on chalky soil.
lf you don’t water your pots enough, your berries won’t develop and become plump and sweet. Make sure the pots all have good drainage though, because plants don’t want to get too waterlogged either.
lf you have lots of pots, then group them together, then they will protect each other from hot, baking sun and drying winds.
There are lots of other berries to grow too that you may never have heard of. There are purple choke berries and grey-blue honey berries and more besides.
Boysenberries are especially nice. You won’t have bought them in the supermarket because they don’t travel well, but you may have tasted them in a shop-bought juice. You can grow them in your own garden. They are like a cross between a blackberry and a raspberry.
A lot of these plants can be grown from cuttings. This means you may be able to replicate plants from a friend’s garden.
There will be lots of other things in your garden will want to eat your crops. You will need to protect your berries from mice and birds. You do this by using nets.
The size of the holes in the net is important. They shouldn’t be so small that they stop pollinating insects from getting in and helping the flowers turn into fruit, but the holes have to be small enough to keep mice and birds out.
The net must be tight because you don’t want birds to get caught up in it. The easiest way to keep a net tight is to stretch it over a fruit cage which is what Auntie Alice does, but of course this is not possible in a very small garden so you can stretch a net over bent pipes or sticks tied together.
Make sure you can still get into your mini fruit garden to weed it, prune the plants and pick the fruit but at the same time tuck the bottom of the net away so that nobody trips over it.
Another safety tip is to cover the pointy ends of the sticks with small pots or some sort of cover that can be seen.
Your fruit bushes should be planted in free-draining soil in a position that is in sun for at least some of the day. lf the soil you want to use is heavy, you can make it better by adding organic matter. Raspberries especially, need free-draining soil.
The lovely thing about fruit bushes is that they are perennial. That means that if you look after them well, they will live for many years.
And you can’t have too many because there are so many different ways of cooking and storing fruit if you can’t eat all of the fruit when it is fresh.
Which is your favourite berry?
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Thank you!
And see you again next Fun Friday!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bob: What is the difference between a gooseberry and a caterpillar?
Bill: l don’t know. What is the difference between a gooseberry and a caterpillar?
Bob: lf you don’t know the difference, you should never go picking gooseberries then!
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
Picture Gallery
Blackberries growing in a hedgerow
Blackcurrants growing on a bush
Boysenberries
(growingandgathering.com)
Gooseberries
(plant-lore.com)
Blueberries
(sciencedaily.com)
Choke berries
Honey berries
THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
This week on the news desk, Auntie Alice has her berry muffins recipe for you.
You can try them with any berries you have and see which you like best.
Ingredients
2½ cups self-raising flour
90g butter
1 cup caster sugar
1¼ cups buttermilk
1 beaten egg
150g fresh or frozen raspberries
½ cup shredded coconut
Method
Preheat the oven to moderate
Place flour in a mixing bowl
Chop the butter and rub into the flour
Lightly stir in the other ingredients
Divide mixture into a 12 cake cases standing in a baking tray
Bake for 20 minutes
Leave to cool for five minutes
Never pick any berries unless an adult says it is safe to do so!
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Quick Quiz
What kind of berries are these?
- The colour of coal
- The colour of the Cookie Monster
- Big farmyard bird
- Dried grass
- To rub with something rough
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE A RED AND WHlTE SUlT FOR A 12” DOLL
This is a very smart suit for your doll. If you make the dress in a light colour and the jacket in a dark colour, the overall look will be very different.
RED DRESS (KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and red dk yarn cast on 25 stitches
Purl 1 row
Purl 1 row
Knit 1 row
Knit 1 row
Slip 1 (knit 1, purl 1) repeat these last 2 stitches to the end of the row
Repeat the last row 35 times (36 rows of moss stitch)
Knit 1 row
Knit 1 row
Cast off
TO MAKE UP
Sew up back seam right sides together using over-sew stitching
WHITE JACKET BACK (KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and red dk yarn cast on 12 stitches
Knit 32 rows of garter stitch
Cast off
WHITE JACKET FRONTS (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and red dk yarn cast on 12 stitches
Knit 16 rows of garter stitch
Cast off
WHITE JACKET SLEEVES (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and red dk yarn cast on 7 stitches
KNIT 20 rows of garter stitch
Cast off
TO MAKE UP
With right sides together and using over-sew stitching
Sew up shoulder seams
Sew the tops of the sleeves to the shoulders
Sew under arm and side seams
Crochet 20 chains into a length of red yarn leaving enough yarn at each end to tie a bow (15cm)
Sew this to the edge of the jacket neck using red sewing thread
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Quick Quiz Answers
- The colour of coal – black
- The colour of the Cookie Monster – blue
- Big farmyard bird – goose
- Dried grass – straw
- To rub with something rough – rasp
