Tidy up soft fruit after the harvest to get the

GOOD gardeners always look ahead, so with the soft fruit all but finished we must plan for next year’s even more brilliant harvest. Nature can always get on without our help.

A self-sown blackcurrant quite near our fruitcage is left to its own devices and thrives magnificently, spreading metres in every direction. I even have to trim some branches back from a burnside path. Like all our bushes this year, it was laden with fruit.

But the berries were tiny, unlike the plump ones on its cultivated parent or the long, burgeoning strings on our ancient, 19th century redcurrant at the bottom of the garden.

Regular pruning over the years has paid dividends and kept us well supplied with delicious redcurrant wine.

For starters, keeping a bush healthy is vital. Whatever the age or type of plant, the first step is to remove dying and poorly fruiting branches.

And be sure to give strawberries a good haircut – no lockdown restrictions here. Use secateurs to remove all this year’s foliage and old fruiting stems, leaving a bare 7-8cm high crown. Fresh leaves emerge within a week or two -– promise!

You also ensure good health by keeping fruit bushes well-shaped. So remove spindly little branches emerging in the centre. Aim for a goblet design, with 4 or 5 main branches forming a perimeter round an open centre.

But keep an eye out for stronger young branches that you’ll need to replace old ones.

Let a newcomer grow on for a year or two before making the change.

Remove any inward-facing stems. And since the main branches should be fan-shaped, remove any crossing and touching stems.

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Blackcurrants