Hi!

I have just joined the forum and would like to intoduce myself. My name is Phil Birley and I live on the North Yorkshire coast near Redcar. My wife and I along with her mother and husband work a double plotted allotment in Salburn. We each have our own departments. I'm Fruit and salad, the mother in law is flowers and greenhouse and my wife and her mothers husband are veg and chickens.

My fruit department is totally caged and the floor mulshed with bark. Been going for 2 years now and get a lot of pleasure from it. List of fruits in my section are:
Polka Raspberries
Other Raspberry (cant remember the name)
3 types of strawberry (mae, alice and another)
James grieves apple
Discovery apple
Red, yellow and green gooseberries (yellow and green new this year)
Blackcurrant
Redcurrant
Blackberry
Loganberry (new this year)
Jostaberry (new this year)
Tayberry (new this year)
Merton Cherry tree

Success stories are:
Polka Raspberries are fantastic, massive firm fruits and lots of them.
Blackcurrant Ben Lomand, lots of fruit.
Redcurrant, again lots of fruit.
Strawberries have been good this year.

Both apple trees are only 2 years old and i am training them as espaliers. A few apples this year but a bit early to pick yet.

Red gooseberry bush was ok but the weight of the fruit grounded the plant, learning all the time i now know to tie up the plant to raise it from the ground.

Nothing from the cherry tree, i need to sort out a pollinator.

Green and yellow gooseberry. jostaberry, tayberry and loganberry were all introduced this year. All look good and are very healthy, a couple of Tayberries. Look forward to next year with these.

I make jams with most of my fruit (22 jars of strawberry yesterday), I enjoy that alot, the taste is unbelievable.

Well thanks for reading. look forward to using the forum. I have already read the thread about 'Cherry tree polinators', excellent advice.
Phil.


I developed a website for our allotments : saltburnallotmentassociation.com