Why soft fruit earns its place on a small plot

Soft fruit is one of the best returns you can get from a modest allotment. Strawberries, raspberries and currants crop within a year or two of planting, they take up far less room than a bed of brassicas, and the fruit you pick yourself tastes nothing like the punnet from the supermarket. A well-managed row of autumn raspberries can keep you in fruit from August to the first frosts, and a handful of currant bushes will fill the freezer and the jam pan with barely any attention.

The trick on a narrow plot is to think vertically and in rows rather than in broad blocks. Most soft fruit naturally grows as a hedge or a stool, which suits a bed 90cm to 1.2m wide perfectly. You walk alongside it, pick from both sides, and the rest of the plot stays free for rotating vegetables.

Choose compact varieties from the start

Variety choice matters more here than almost anywhere else in the garden. Old-fashioned raspberries will run several metres if you let them, and a full-sized blackcurrant can swallow a quarter of a small plot. Look for descriptions that mention compact growth, thornless stems or container suitability.

• Strawberries: 'Cambridge Favourite' is still hard to beat for flavour and reliability. For a longer season, plant 'Mara des Bois' alongside a late cropper such as 'Florence'. If space is truly tight, alpine strawberries give a steady trickle of small, intensely sweet fruit and tolerates light shade.
• Raspberries: 'Autumn Bliss' and 'Polka' are primocane types, fruiting on this year's canes — far easier to manage in a small bed because you cut the whole lot down each winter. 'Ruby Beauty' is a genuinely dwarf, thornless raspberry that will happily grow in a large pot on the patio.
• Blackcurrants: 'Ben Sarek' and 'Ben Connan' are compact, heavy-cropping and resistant to big bud mite. One bush is usually enough for a household.
• Red and white currants: grown as cordons, these take up barely 40cm of width each. 'Redstart' and 'White Versailles' both train well.
• Gooseberries: 'Pax' and 'Hinnonmaki Red' are thornless or nearly so, which makes picking a pleasure rather than a blood sport.

Planning narrow beds and spacing

Prepare the ground the autumn before planting by digging in plenty of well-rotted manure or garden compost and removing every scrap of perennial weed — you will not get a second chance once the canes are in. Soft fruit hates competition and a bed full of couch grass will halve your crop.

For strawberries, a single row down the centre of a 90cm bed works well, with plants set 35–45cm apart. Raspberries are best as a single row of canes spaced 45cm apart, with a permanent post at each end and two or three horizontal wires at 60cm, 1.2m and 1.8m. Restrict the row to about 1.5–2m if your plot is small; you can always take a few runners or suckers later if you want more.

Cordon currants and gooseberries are the real space-savers. Plant them 40–45cm apart along a wire, angled at about 45 degrees, and you can fit six or seven cordons where one free-standing bush would grow. Blackcurrants, which cannot be cordoned, need about 1.2m each — plant just one, and put it at the end of the row where it will not shade anything.

Planting, feeding and watering

November to March is the ideal planting window for bare-root canes and bushes, provided the soil is not frozen or waterlogged. Strawberries are usually sold as cold-stored runners in spring or as potted plants in late summer; either works, but plant them with the crown exactly at soil level, never buried.

Feed little and often rather than richly. A general-purpose mulch in spring plus a high-potash feed — sulphate of potash or a tomato feed — from flowering onwards is what fruit needs. Too much nitrogen gives you leafy canes and precious little fruit. Water consistently while the fruit is swelling; irregular watering is the main cause of split berries and bitter currants. A soaker hose down the row saves a great deal of time in a dry July.

Prune annually or lose the crop

Soft fruit is not difficult, but it is unforgiving of neglect. Each type has its own rhythm, and getting it right takes perhaps half an hour a year.

• Summer raspberries: after picking, cut the canes that fruited back to ground level and tie in six to eight of the strongest new canes.
• Autumn raspberries: cut every cane to the ground in February. Nothing could be simpler.
• Blackcurrants: remove about a third of the oldest wood each winter, cutting to a strong young shoot low down. This keeps the bush productive and stops it outgrowing its space.
• Red and white currants and gooseberries: in summer, shorten side shoots to five leaves and later to two or three buds. Cordons get the same treatment, plus a light trim of the leader once it reaches the top wire.
• Strawberries: cut off runners unless you want new plants, and replace the whole bed every three years, as yields drop and virus builds up.

Net the crop before the birds find it

Birds will strip a strawberry bed in a single morning, and they seem to know the exact day your raspberries ripen. Netting is not optional on most allotments. Use a mesh of about 20mm — wide enough that bees can still get to the flowers, small enough to exclude blackbirds — and peg or weight the edges down so nothing can creep underneath.

The golden rule is to net after flowering, once the petals have dropped and pollinators are no longer needed, and to check the net every few days for trapped birds. A simple frame of canes and netting held clear of the foliage is far kinder than net draped directly onto the fruit. Strawberries also benefit from a mulch of straw or a layer of matting beneath the leaves, which keeps the berries clean and deters slugs.

Get the planting, pruning and netting right, and a plot the size of a couple of parking spaces will keep you in fresh fruit all summer and enough for the freezer besides.