EP344- 10 Essential Fruits For Your Kitchen Garden: Fruit Truly Worth Growing.

You can grow a lot of things in a kitchen garden, but fruit is where the difference hits hardest. A homegrown apple or strawberry can make supermarket fruit taste flat, and that’s why we pull together our 10 essential fruits for a kitchen garden, with a focus on what actually works in Ireland and what still works when space is tight.

We start with the reality of gardening life: coming back from holidays, dealing with dry weather casualties, and the constant battle to keep plants watered without burning out. Then we get practical about the fruit that gives the biggest return, beginning with apples. We talk rootstocks for manageable trees, growing apples in pots, the basics of pruning and feeding, and why pollination partners matter. There’s also a very real warning about birds, including blackbirds stripping fruit when conditions are dry and water is scarce.

From there we move through strawberries for true seasonal flavour, raspberries for unbeatable freshness, and reliable choices like Victoria plum and Conference pear. We also cover currants as heavy-cropping, low-fuss bushes, grapes as a brilliant greenhouse or polytunnel project, and a few curveballs like gooseberries and blueberries, including the key detail that blueberries need acidic, ericaceous compost. We finish with rhubarb, the crop that gives and gives with remarkably little effort once established.

If you enjoy growing your own food, subscribe, share the episode with a gardening friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s on your personal list of 10 essential fruits?

This weeks sponsor: 

Crann From  Probio Carbon 

https://www.probiocarbon.ie

Transcript

Welcome And Why Fruit Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:12

How's it going everybody and welcome to episode 344 of Master My Garden Podcast? Now, this week's episode is an episode that is following on from episodes that I've done over the last couple of weeks where I've looked at 10 essential herbs for the kitchen garden and 10 essential vegetables for the kitchen garden. The first two were requested. This one wasn't, but it seems logical to sort of follow it on, and those episodes were really popular. So 10 essential fruit for the kitchen garden is this week's episode.

Sponsor Probiocarbon For Healthier Trees

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Before we get into that, a message from this week's sponsor it's probiocarbon. And probiocarbon actually ties in quite well with this week's episode on fruit because I use this product on all of my fruit trees at the start of the season. So it is Bacillus Sutlis and Pseudomonas, which are two beneficial bacteria native to Ireland, and when you apply them to your crops, they create resilient crops, produce a vigorous growth, and make them more resilient to diseases. So they're not a fungicide as such, but they act as uh as a natural fungicide, I guess, as well as a plant invigorator and a booster. And you'll find all the details to that on www.probiocarbon.ie and the link to that is in the show notes. Uh so yeah, 10 essential herbs for the kitchen garden.

Holiday Return And Dry Weather Losses

SPEAKER_00 1:33

And uh this week I'm back from holidays, and yeah, I was away for 10 days. I completely wound down my seed sewing on the run up to that because a friend of mine was looking after uh the essential watering, but I didn't want to overburden them with a lot of crops, so I wound down all my seed sewing for a couple of weeks coming up to the holiday, and now I have to kind of ramp back up again because uh I have some stuff, quite a few casualties during the dry weather, so it was dry before I went, waters it as best I could, but just wanted to keep you know, particularly the tomatoes, peppers, things like that, in the tunnel going. But lots of other casualties as a result of the really, really dry weather. Now there has been some rain since, but uh in some ways I kind of feel like I'm starting again in the in the garden, but I suppose that is par for the course when you know when you get weather like that and you happen to be away. Um but it's all good because there's still lots of time. I had some uh seedlings, have some seedlings which are ready to be planted out. I had them ready to go, and they were one of the things that I was getting my friend to keep watered while I was away. So they're fine, they'll go in, and very, very quickly I'll be back with harvests again. Um couple of fails though as a result of the as a result of this you know this weather, um this dry weather that we've had. I've had I've still harvesting very nice carrots from the polytunnel. They're Amsterdam forcing nice long, skinny kind of baby carrots, really sweet. And they've they've been really successful, and I still have a good few weeks left in them. But my outdoor sewing has failed twice. Um not failed in germination, but failed to grow on. So, first time I saw them, you know, you've heard me talk about it before when you're sewing carrots outside, make sure that you're that the ground is moist, make sure that they stay moist for the first 10 days. And I did that, but just the ground was just so dry, and some of the temperatures were so intense that that I lost my first sewing. And then before I went away, I well, a week before I went away, I got another sewing done. I got quite quick germination because the temperatures were high, really watered them, really looked after them, and alas, when I was gone, they burnt up again for the second time. So I currently have no carrots uh in the beds outside. So huge harvest of garlic, one very good harvest of onions early. The second one is really looking for water. Uh, it has got some over the last few days, but yeah, it's it's been a tricky, it's been a tricky year in terms of growing. Um, in terms of the holiday, I was you know away for, as I said, uh 10 days. Sometimes you come back really refreshed. This time I haven't I don't feel overly refreshed, didn't sleep very well on holidays. I've come back a little bit tired and a little bit of a cold as well. So um, yeah, hopefully that um feeling of refreshment will hit me one of these days, but yeah, back at it now,

Why Homegrown Fruit Tastes Better

SPEAKER_00 4:50

anyway. Uh so 10 essential fruit for the kitchen garden. And as I say, this list is a little bit, you know, it may not be your choices. Uh there's lots of options for fruit, but I think when it comes to growing your own food, you know, herbs, vegetables, flowers, there's probably certain crops that have a real stark difference between what you'll grow and what you'll buy, and I think that difference is most pronounced when it comes to fruit, and especially things like apples and strawberries. So, this list I think will be you know really useful for people. The other thing, and we'll mention it as we go through the majority of these can be grown. You don't need a lot of space, so even if you're in a small-scale garden or you know, you don't have a lot of space, a little allotment, or even you know, something as small as a balcony, you will be able to grow some of these. So it's really, really easy to be successful.

Apples In Pots Rootstocks Pollination

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Um, first one on the list, and I think it's going to be the first one on anybody's list, is apples, and it is one of the things that you will grow yourself that just tastes like night and day between what you'll buy, you know, what you'll get in your supermarket or anywhere else. It's just a stark difference, a really, really huge difference in it. And yeah, it's easy to grow. Again, it's one that can be grown, you know, you can get the likes of the little coronet apples, they can be grown in a pot. So space, you know, could be considered, you know, if you think of a big apple tree, as a stumbling block. But by growing something like a coronet or super dwarf, um, you can actually grow apples really successfully. Um that was another fail, actually. Speaking of fails, I planted a coronet apple tree early this year as part of a demo for for a group, and so frustrating because it was growing brilliantly, it's doing really well in a pot. I wanted to demonstrate that you can grow apples in a pot. I left it sitting um in in a basic in in my little one's swimming pool, not swimming pool, paddle pool or whatever you call it. I left it sitting in that when it was gone so it wouldn't dry out and it didn't, and it's grown beautifully. But what happened, and I think I know a lot of people are suffering with the same thing. My friend the blackbird uh saw the apples on it while I was away and took every one of them. So it started off at the start of the year. There was on this little small tree, which is in a pot, it developed 40 fruits or thereabouts. I think it was 38 or thereabouts fruit on the tree. Now I knew at that stage like they weren't all going to develop into fully fledged fruits. That the tree will decide, you'll find that in your gardens, you know, even bigger, mature trees, depending on ground conditions. So if it's after been really dry for a long period of time and there's a lot of fruit up on top, which there was this year, the tree will automatically know that it cannot, given the amount of moisture that I'm able to take in at the moment, I cannot develop all these. So it'll start to drop off some of them, and it'll sort of find a level that matches the the moisture levels, let's say, in the ground. But in the pot, it did that as well. So 40 fruits-ish developed, and it dropped off, you know, and it was getting good water and good feeding and so on. It dropped off a certain amount of them, and I was left with about 18 or so nice fruit that were developing nicely that were increasing in size when I went away, and when I came back, there's none on it. Um that caused me to go back out to check the other apple trees, which are only planted a couple of years, and same thing, all the apples gone off those. So blackbirds really had a feel there. I know that a lot of people are experiencing trouble with blackbirds in polytunnels, and this is probably as a result of that really, really prolonged dry period. The the blackbirds themselves they are looking for you know that type of berries, and uh that's their preferred diet. But the other thing that I think is happening, especially when it comes to tomatoes, is that the when they peck into a tomato, a big fat, juicy tomato, what they are getting is moisture and you know, water in effect. And that is probably as a result of the dry period. There maybe isn't access to as much water, you know, out in out in nature, out in the ditches, out in the fields, as there would normally be. And they're resorting then to to the fruits and to and so on to get their you know their moisture, the moisture into the into themselves. So it's very, very frustrating that Blackbird has caused me he's probably the pest that's causing the most trouble here between rooting up beds, pulling out seedlings, uh he's just destructive. Um and generally speaking, you know, I know that there's a little bit of give and take, but this guy seems to be doing too much taking, so he's really, really annoying me at the moment. Um, but anyway, so all apples gone off the tree. Having said that, as it as I mentioned, apples are the one crop that would just taste so much better when you grow them yourselves. Uh, there's loads of varieties out there. Typically speaking, if you're in a garden situation, small garden situation, or even normal garden situation, you want to work with sort of smaller varieties, and that's determined by the rootstock that they're on. So something like M9 or Dwarf, super dwarf, they will give you a tree that will stay manageable, so it'll you know kind of stay six to eight or nine feet tall maximum at any stage, and that means that for pruning and for even harvesting and things like that, it's just much easier to manage. So obviously, you can get bigger trees up to M26s, and you know they'll grow into big, big substantial trees, and they're fine in certain scenarios, but just for most domestic gardens, dwarf um rootstocks are really the way to go because it just means that they're more manageable, and even as you go into later life, they're a lot more manageable for you as well. Uh, varieties pretty much like you're unlimited in the amount of varieties you can grow. Some of the real popular ones in Ireland are Katie, um, then there's John Ago Johnner Gord, um you have you know the likes of El Star, you do have uh James Greave, an old favoured, a little bit susceptible to diseases, but really, really tasty. Then you have the Cox's orange and red pippins, really, really tasty. One of the nicest apples that you'll eat, I think. And they're all you know, they're all good, solid varieties, and you can get them on a variety of different rootstuffs. So apple is definitely for me the number one on the list, and the difference between what you'll buy and what you'll grow will be stark. Not much work in them. The only thing you do need to know is you just need to figure out the pruning, and it's not a hard job, it's something that you just need to understand why you're doing it and what you're doing. Um, yeah, maybe I'll do a video on that at some stage, but that's all you need to do is just prune it once a year, make sure you you feed it properly, make sure the blackbird doesn't get them when you're gone away, if you can avoid that at all. Uh, but apple is a brilliant one. Only other consideration then is pollination partners. So you need to get apples that uh will cross-pollinate one another. So if you get a specific variety and it's not self-p self-um fertilizing, then you don't have the the pollination partner to go along with it. So you need pollination partners with certain varieties. But just ask your garden centre, ask your nursery, ask your provider of the apple tree. If they don't know the answer, then don't buy them because it's essential that you know you know uh what is compatible with what. Uh,

Strawberries Seasonal Flavour And Varieties

SPEAKER_00 12:55

next one on the list again is one that there's just such a huge difference on. Um I suppose we've gotten to the situation where if you went back 30 years ago, strawberries were just so seasonal, you would get them at a certain time of the year. The ones from Wexford were always the first to hit the market, and there was something delicious about them because you weren't eating them all year round. You weren't, you know, they were a a treat at a window within the year, so eating with the calendar, I guess. And what has happened since then, obviously, is that you know demand has led to big huge nurseries creating and growing strawberries a lot of the year, not all year round here in Ireland, obviously, but they're growing them for a lot of the year. And they're inside in tunnels, they are in extremely, I suppose, pampered conditions. They're growing, they're growing really, really with with the aid of a lot of help, let's say, in big tunnels and so on. Uh, and the taste that you get is nowhere near what you'll get from something that's grown in the ground and something that isn't, say, forced. So there's a stark difference between the strawberry that you'll buy and the one that you'll grow, a little bit like the apple. So varieties to watch out for, some of the real old ones are the tastiest, and I'll explain why in a second. So you'll get the likes of Cambridge Favourite is an early variety, El Santa would sort of be a mid-season, and then Symphony would be a later season. If you plant the three of those, you'll kind of have a harvest of strawberries over a long period of time. You can of course freeze them and so on, but a lot of the the strawberries that are grown for what you'll see in the supermarkets, they will be grown on what's known as everbearers. So they're not a seasonal one, they will basically continue to produce, continue to produce fruit all along. Everbearers are brilliant in that they'll continue to give you that fruit, and you know, from that point of view it's really beneficial. The only downside of them, I would say, is that they're nowhere near as tasty as the old kind of favourite varieties. Those old ones have that this they'll they'll all taste slightly differently, so the early will taste different to the mid season will taste taste different to the late season, but they all taste different. Whereas the Everbear will be exactly the same all along and will not taste as good as the the old favourites, let's say. But strawberries is definitely has to be on the list. Once you have your strawberries, you'll always have them because obviously you can harvest the runners off them, and then you can create new plants, you get a couple of good years out of them, and then you kind of have to save the next runners and go ahead. Uh, raspberry

Raspberries Freshness Summer Versus Autumn

SPEAKER_00 15:40

is the next one. Again, I feel not so much for taste, because I think you know some of the shop grown grown ones can taste quite good, but the big thing with raspberry is that they just don't, you know, you just don't get that freshness. So once they've come off the once they've come off the the plant, they really need to be eaten quite quickly, and you just can't get that through, in my opinion, through a supermarket scenario. That's why when you open the tray of raspberries in the supermarket, they have the little black like tissue thing in the bottom of it, which is to soak up the juice, which is automatically coming out of it the minute they're with the minute they're sort of put into a packet. So, you know, even at home, if you take your raspberries and you bring them in, put them in the fridge, they'll be fine the next day, maybe the day after, but they don't last. So raspberries grown at home, straight off the plant, ten minutes later in with cream or ice cream or whatever the case may be, are just phenomenal. And the difference again is stark, but it's not necessarily because of the taste, it's more because they just don't store. So raspberries another good one. You have two distinct windows of harvest here. You've the summer fruiting ones, you have the autumn fruiting ones, and the big difference between them is how they're grown and how they're harvested. So summer fruiting ones have to be grown uh on a support because the the canes come up tall. What happens is you plant your your raspberry in year one, the cane grows up. Typically, you won't get any fruit that year. Uh then in the second year, more canes come up, they're year one canes, but the fruit will will occur on the second year's cane's canes, if that makes sense. So last year's canes basically are the fruiting canes. So that means that at the end of a season, you plant out the you cut you prune out the ones that have just fruited, and then the ones that have grown this year and borne enough fruit, they're the ones that are going to have the fruit the following year. So with autumn ones, that's totally different. So autumn ones don't need support, they grow like a bush, they spread like mads, so don't stick them in your ground and expect them to have manners unless you're going to constantly cut them back in and basically dig around them and not let them spread. But they will spread, they want the spread, they're designed to spread, and they will just cover ground, so you need to keep manners on them. But unlike the summer ones, they've they put out their shoots and they fruit on that shoot in the same year. So when you prune at the end of the year, you basically cut everything to the ground and up they come the next year and off they fruit again. So raspberry, two ways of growing it, two seasons of harvest, summer and autumn. Uh autumn ones, just kind of limited choice, you'll get maybe two varieties. Summer ones, there's several varieties you can get. The autumn ones are lovely, nice time of the year, a little bit stronger in taste, a little bit bigger as well. Um I have two. I have a gold one and I have the mauling um let's name it. Autumn gold and all gold. So autumn gold is I think autumn gold is the red one, and all gold is the goldie one. So they're autumn ones. Um next fruit on the list is going to be a simple one to cover because where there's loads of varieties of fruit, you know, pretty much in every fruit that we talk about you can get so many varieties.

Plums And Pears Reliable Varieties

SPEAKER_00 19:10

But the next one is plum. Um plums are just delicious, they're really successful, easy to grow in Ireland, generally speaking, with the one caveat which I'll tell you about in a minute. Um, but the best and if you're the best variety to grow is Victoria. Plum uh self-fertile, so you don't need a pollination partner with it. It fruits heavily, it fruits consistently. Generally speaking, you'll get fruit every year on it. Um the only thing you will want to watch out for is that even as a quite young tree, it would produce, can produce really heavily and weigh down the branches, and you would need to support some of those branches. I've had trees here that have just snapped under the weight of the fruit. So you do need to support them. It's very easy to do, but you do need to support them and just watch for that. You'll know yourself, you'll see the branches bending down, and as the fruit develops, they'll get heavier and heavier, and eventually the branch will just snap. So if you feel that that might be the case, just support them. But I know I'm only going to mention Victoria because really and truly, if you're grown, if you're growing plums, then it's the simplest one. The only caveat to that is if you're in a kind of a bad site or a site that's really a bit exposed, or that plums mightn't do so well. They like it to be a little bit like they don't like really exposed sites, really poor soil. But in that scenario, you can grow a damson, and that is I would say equally as nice when it when it fruits well. And you can have now they grow into a big tree, so don't put it outside your outside your sitting room window because it is is a big tree. And but it will f fruit in a less, you know, you know, in a in a poorer site than the plum wood. So kind of gives you the same benefit if you're on a if you're on a poor site. Next one on the list, I think, is one that people really find tricky in Ireland. Uh some have are very successful with it, some are not. Depends on your area a little bit, but that's pairs. And again, I'm only going to kind of mention the main variety, but there is other varieties that work really well. And the main one is conference. So it's the one that you would know from the shops. It is quite successful in Ireland. Does again like you know a little bit of a nicer sight, doesn't like to be too exposed, likes to be in decent ground, likes to get reasonable sun and dosk type things, but it does it does quite well. Uh and conference is kind of a good solid performer in in that respect. There is other good varieties as well, but there that's kind of the main one, you know. It's kind of the the I suppose the go to one for for somebody if they were growing just a couple of plum or pear trees. Next

Currants Heavy Crops And Bird Theft

SPEAKER_00 21:52

on the list is again, will be really, really attractive to your your friend or my friend, the black bar. And it's black currants stroke, red corns, either are or white corns for that matter, either. Any of these three. They're small bush, really heavy cropping. Generally speaking, they'll crop every year, not much to it. Plant them, wait for them to grow, wait for them to fruit. Don't have to do much care, a little bit of pruning to keep them in check, but in reality they're kind of a plant and forget about them type fruit, which you know is good to have. So they're really you know, obviously, black currants use for jam, red currants use for yeah with desserts, white currants, the same. So they can all be used in different ways. They're sweet generally on the inside and a kind of a tart or sour uh skin on them. So yeah, there's loads of loads of options there. They're brilliant fruit, really, really easy to grow. But the the one caveat there is that as you're watching, waiting for them to ripen, at the very same time, the the birds will be watching them, they'll be waiting for them to ripen, and they won't pick them while they're not ripe. But the very first day that they're ripe, goodbye, they're gone. So you need to protect them or you need to watch them a lot more carefully than the birds. But definitely for 10 essential fruit for a kitchen garden, blackcurrant, redcurrant, or white currant, any of those should be in there. Next

Grapes Under Cover And A Holiday Lesson

SPEAKER_00 23:27

on the list is something that I've only planted myself this year for the first time in the polytunnel and its grapes. So I have no experience of personally growing them. I know some people are hugely successful with them here in Ireland. I won't say exclusively, but predominantly in a greenhouse of some sort. They like that warm weather, they will thrive in that. And yeah, my one has started started off really slowly through the spring, but as soon as the warmer weather came in, it has taken off a little bit, and yeah, it's it's doing quite good now. It'll be another little while, a couple of years before I'll have fruit, but really looking forward to that. And as I say, I know that loads of people are successful with them. Uh, you won't need you just need one or possibly two vines, that's all you're gonna need. You will need to support it, you will need to be able to, and this is where obviously polytunnel or or greenhouse of some sort, you can train it along the bars, and it works really well from that point of view. But I think it's another great one for for the garden. When I was on holidays, it was actually in uh Lanzarote and a really barren, um not a particularly nice landscape at all. Um, but I went out to the grape growing region and I was blown away by how they're growing the grapes there. So it is literally volcanic ash and rock on the whole island, and they had these like bowls, and it's very, very windy there as well. So they've they've dig they've dug out these kind of bowls or dishes in the ground, about say 1.2 or 1.5 meters in diameter. And right in the centre of that they've planted the the grape plants and they have an irrigation line going to it, and then around that in a semicircle, they have these little walls built out of the out of the volcanic rock that's there. The purpose of the the little walls was to stop the wind because it's a very, very windy place, and obviously that windy, drying wind the whole time wouldn't be conducive to growing to growing um fruit. So they've basically gone down into the ground, created this dish, and trained out the you know the different shoots of the grape to go in different directions. So they're basically harvesting off the ground these fabulous grapes. We went out and done a kind of a tour thing, and I was amazed. Like I don't know how. Totally different way of of growing something. Um

Gooseberries Getting Past The Sour

SPEAKER_00 26:41

so grapes definitely has to be on the list. The next one on the list is going to be a love it or hate it type one. Um as a child I was kind of on the hated type uh side of it, and it's gooseberries. So I used to go to my grandparents' house and they had gooseberries, and they were always really hairy, and often you would pick off one and you'd be just could you bite it without making a face, and they were always really sour, and yeah, we didn't like it, but it was a bit of you know, a bit of banter, we'd make one letter eat it, and it was yeah, they were really, really sour. I remembered them as that, and I never grew them here as a result of that. But this year or last autumn I planted in some um some new ones, and I had uh a black one called Black Velvet. Um, I had the usual suspects like Invict and so on. But I planted in like six or seven of them, uh just really small. So this year there was a couple of fruit on them. When I say a couple, two or three on each plant, just because it's the first year, they will grow and they will drive on from here. But the the black velvet one had a few fruit on it, and I tasted them, and they were absolutely delicious. So they were quite a lot sweeter, they're more of a dessert gooseberry, a lot sweeter than what I remember. Nowhere near as kind of hairy or as thick skinned, they were softer, they were nicer, they were actually tasted like a fruit, and uh yeah, they were really nice. So I'm looking forward to seeing those growing on over the next while. So gooseberry is definitely one, as I say, love it or hate it. If it's not for you, that'll come out of the list and you'll put something else in there instead of

Blueberries Acid Soil And Autumn Colour

SPEAKER_00 28:20

it. Next one on the list is one of the you know what people call superfoods now. Um, although everything on this list, to be fair, would be a superfood. If you're growing it yourself, the the health benefits would be will be huge. Um but seen as a superfood, blueberries. Uh the one thing to note on this is that it needs to be grown in acidic style. So acid soil. So if you're putting that into a pot, you need to get ericaceous compost, that's what you're looking for, or acidic compost, that's that's what you're looking for. Um can be really successful here. Again, for me, this is my first year, just planted some in this year. Uh, haven't grown them before. I don't eat blueberries, don't particularly like them personally. Um, but the girls here love them, so I've grown a few. There's some really nice ones in it as well. So um there's a lovely pink one that looks like looks like a pink version of a blueberry, essentially. Well, that's what it is, um, but it's sweeter, um, and it's called pink lemonade. So, and there's loads of other varieties as well. They'll grow really, really happy in a pot, so they'll be successful in a pot. They're not a particularly hungry crop. The only thing that they do need is that they need the aricaceous soil. They also do need, you know, some of them are self-fertile, but they may need a pollination partner, so you just have to watch for that as well. Um, but blueberry superfood, really worth growing, and another added benefit of them if you have them in your garden is that they have absolutely gorgeous autumn colour. So the leaves turn a really, really beautiful orange and red as you enter the autumn, and yeah, they look really great.

Rhubarb The Low Effort Champion

SPEAKER_00 30:03

The next one on the list is a little bit of a cheat in a way, uh, but I didn't include it on the vegetable list. It is a vegetable, but it's kind of eaten and considered a fruit as such, and that's rhubarb. So I know it's I know it's a vegetable um before anyone tells me, um, but it is eaten more like a fruit. So it's used in tarts, it's used in crumbles, it's used in stewed rhubarb, you know, all those type all those type um dishes. So as I say, it's eaten more like a like a fruit. But it is one that will I love things that will just give with so little effort. And to be honest, I don't think you'll grow anything else that will give so much from so little effort. So you plant your rhubarb stools in year one. Small stools, they'll you'll think that there's not a lot going to happen with these. Generally planted in the depths of the winter, no leaf on them, it's just a big piece of root, put it into the ground, you support it well or uh compact it in well. Uh only thing you do, don't make don't put it in it in wet ground, it has to be into kind of moisture retaining but free draining. So not waterlog soil, essentially, is what I'm saying. Uh, once you do that, mulch it down and then leave it. Then in the springtime, very, very early, you'll see those shoots coming up, you'll see those rhubarb stalks coming up. They will be very tempting to harvest, don't harvest them, let allow them to grow, allow them to die back, mulch them again in the winter time. Following year, even more tempting. The plants look strong, they look really big. If you can at all avoid harvest in the second year, and then in third year, they'll harvest, and you will harvest off them for a number of years, a lot of years, before you'll have to do anything with them. And all you need to do is once a year just mulch, mulch, mulch down. We've had all this dry weather, uh, the rhubarb never even bat annihilate. If it lashes rain all spring, it won't bat annihilate. It'll still be there, it'll still come up, it'll still grow, it'll still harvest. Doesn't seem to be affected by any weather, doesn't seem to, as I said, bat annihilate at it wet. If it rains for two months, it doesn't matter. If it dry for two months, it doesn't matter, it just stays consistent and it gives, gives, gives, gives harvest all the time. So has to be in the list. As I say, I know it's technically a vegetable, but it has to fall in there. So

Ten Fruit Recap And Your List

SPEAKER_00 32:33

quick shoot over that list again. Number one is the apple, two strawberry, three raspberry, four plum, five pear, six blackcurrant, red currant, or white curd, whatever your choice may be, seven grapes, eight gooseberries, nine blueberries, and ten rhubarb. So that's ten essential herbs for the kitchen garden, and I think it's quite a good list. As I say, the other two were requested: ten essential vegetables, ten essential herbs. This one wasn't, but I think it kind of rounds off those those episodes quite well. Uh and let me know which ones are you growing, what vegetables from the or what uh flower sorry, what uh fruit from that list are you growing? I have apple, strawberry, raspberry, plum, pear, blackcurrant, redcurrant, grape only this year, gooseberry only this year, blueberry only this year, and I have rhubarb. So I actually have all on that list. There's loads of others. There's you know, mulberries, there's cranberries, there's loganberries, there's so many other options out there in terms of fruits. If you're in certain parts of the world, then you know, the likes of peaches and lemons and oranges, wherever you're listening, they might be on your list. But wherever you are, um, you know, what is your list of 10 essentials? I think this one is kind of suitable and good for you know for basically anybody growing in Ireland. So hopefully that has helped.

Sponsor Thanks And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 34:00

And uh, before we finish off, uh big thank you to this week's sponsor that's Pro Pro Biocarbon. The link to that is in the show notes. And that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening, and until the next time, happy garbage.