Back to school WITH raspberries!

With a focus on raspberries, this month David Patch explains exactly what is required to cultivate the tastiest of fruit

- David Patch

How can we grow the best tasting fruit possible? It’s a question that is surely at the forefront of every gardener's mind as the summer progresses. We are not commercial growers who have other criteria such as appearance, yield and shelf-life to consider. Even a small plot is capable of producing more than enough fruit for our needs, and we can pick and eat or freeze within a matter of hours, so no need to worry about storage and transportation.

It’s flavour that drives us to grow our own, and this month in our focus on raspberries we will be looking at how fruit ripens, and what we can do to get the tastiest berries possible. Much of what we’ll look at applies to all fruit, so don’t be afraid to try some of the principles with any other fruit you grow, and see if you can make this year’s crops the best yet.

SOME BASIC BOTANY

First, we need to go over some basic botany to understand the processes involved when fruit ripens, what influences these processes and then how we can manipulate them for our own benefit. After a year when many of us have been home-schooling, this may cause your heart to drop, but bear with me – we won’t get too technical and the solutions are all ones we as gardeners are very familiar with.

Plants make sugars through photosynthesis – it’s a complicated process but essentially the leaves use carbon dioxide from the air, and sunlight, to form carbohydrates (sugars). Early in the season, these take the form of starches which make the young, small raspberries. These pack together well (like Lego building blocks), which is why underripe fruit is firm to the touch. They also don’t taste very sweet, making the fruit unattractive to birds while the seeds are still immature.

RIPENING GROUPS