AGM soft fruits
Words: Graham Rice
More and more gardeners are starting to grow soft fruit, going back to growing it, or looking to grow improved varieties. Choosing the right variety can make an enormous difference in terms of yield, flavour and how many pests and diseases you need to combat. Start with these ten Award of Garden Merit (AGM) varieties.
Blackberry 'Fantasia'
This high yielding blackberry has that one feature we all look for in blackberries – that wonderful wild blackberry flavour. The berries are large, and, although the plants are thorny, the berries are carried on long stalks so picking them is not as difficult as you might think. This is a vigorous plant, and with regular training will produce a huge crop from July into the autumn.
Blueberry 'Spartan'
In recent years, blueberries have become popular. Their preference for acid soil had held them back, but now many gardeners grow them in containers of ericaceous compost. ‘Spartan’ has large berries with real flavour as well as that familiar tang, and its upright growth makes the berries easy to pick. It yields well, but crops improve greatly if you plant another variety alongside to aid pollination.
Blackcurrant 'Ben Sarek'
Specially developed for home gardeners, this blackcurrant makes a neat and compact bush no more than 90cm (3ft) high so is ideal in small spaces. The unusually large fruits are a little sweeter than those of most commercial varieties, high in healthy anthocyanins and are ready to pick in July. Other useful attributes are resistance to spring frosts and also resistance to mildew.
Redcurrant 'Jonkheer van Tets'
The earliest of the redcurrants, 'Jonkheer van Tets' is ripe from early July, its large bright red fruits carried in long, easy-to-pick strings. The yield is very high, the flavour excellent and although the plants can be rather large, up to 1.5m (5ft) on good soil, it thrives trained as a cordon on fence or wires where the crop can be truly impressive.
Gooseberry 'Invicta'
The first gooseberry resistant to the devastating American Gooseberry Mildew, ‘Invicta’ is ideal for home gardeners. It also boasts a very high yield of large fruits that hang in heavy bunches and yields can be as high as twice that of older varieties. This is a strong growing variety, to train as a cordon or grow as a bush, and is ready from late July.
Grapevine 'Boskoop Glory'
For both wine making and eating fresh, one grape stands out for its reliability in our climate, year after year. ‘Boskoop Glory’ gives a heavy crop of blue-black grapes in large bunches in September and October and although its flavour might not match that of less dependable varieties, it is nevertheless rich and sweet.
Raspberry 'Tulameen'
An outstanding raspberry with extremely high yields of large, very good quality fruits ripening over a long season in late July and August. It’s especially valuable for the home fruit grower as the canes have very few spines and plants show good resistance to botrytis. “A good variety, with good flavour, pickability and weight of fruit,” said the RHS panel at the recent trial.
Rhubarb 'Timperley Early’
Well known as the earliest rhubarb of the season, ‘Timperley Early’ can be forced outside to cut in February or left to develop naturally. Even its most enthusiastic supporters will admit that the yield is not huge, but its natural earliness more than compensates. The flavour of the narrow sticks, whose red base shades into green as they mature, is delicious.
Strawberry 'Symphony'
This outstanding strawberry combines a number of valuable qualities. The medium to large-sized, bright red berries are unusually uniform with few runts, with that tempting, old-fashioned strawberry flavour and flesh that is red right through. Happy in a wide range of soils, the plants are resistant to mildew and red core disease and even show some resistance to vine weevil.
Tayberry
A cross between a blackberry and raspberry, the long bright purple tayberry fruits are enormous and the aromatic flavour is mouth watering. Plants are very vigorous and many gardens will need only one plant: it will produce a huge yield in early July. Fruits are about twice the size of a raspberry, delicious fresh from the plant and also freeze well for a taste of summer in mid winter.