Pros And Cons Of Growing Berries In Your Garden, And Which Are Easiest To Grow

While some home-grown fruit like apples, cherries, or plums can take three years or more to produce sweet, edible fruit. Some berries offer a harvest after only a year or two. Fresh, fragrant and delicious, there are many reasons to cultivate berries, one of nature's super foods. Tasty is first. Cost saving is second. Environmentally sound is third – what you can't or won't eat, wildlife from birds to scavengers (squirrels, raccoons, foxes, and more) are happy to pig out on slightly rotten berries.

The worst case scenario for bringing berry bushes into the garden is the possibility of these fruit shrubs bringing in pests, mold, and some floral diseases. However, if you're vigilant, these potential downsides are treatable. Additionally, berry shrubs tend to expand so be sure to space them properly to give them plenty of room to grow.

One additional downside to planting berries is that you may have a small window for harvesting the fruit. If you take extended vacations in summer, the berries could ripen and fall away before you have time to enjoy them. But this negative aspect has a sunny side — since ripe berries will bring beneficial songbirds into your garden, birds that eat pests, and act as pollinators for flowers and plants. Once start adding berry bushes to your garden, consider expanding from the most popular to other berries, also easy to grow. These might include raspberries, loganberries, or currants.

Before you plant, we have some suggestions for berry producing bushes perfect for your yard. Strawberries are easy to cultivate because they fruit very quickly and also are versatile. They will grow in a container or a garden bed and can be trained to grow vertically along a trellis or fence. You can even grow beautiful strawberries by using old tires!

Blackberries will grow in many kinds of soil and will thrive where other plants may not grow at all. Today, hybrid blackberries are available, meaning the sharp thorns associated with traditional bushes have been bred out. Blueberries are super easy as well. They're a plant-it-and-forget-it bush that gives you pints of fruit readily, especially if you follow these guidelines on how to grow and care for blueberry plants.

For the healthiest crop of berries, find the right spot in your garden. Most berries need six to eight hours of sunlight in order to produce fruit. Berries need to be planted in slightly acidic soil (5.5 to 6.8 Ph) in an area that drains well. The right spot is especially important since strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries are all perennials, so they'll return each year to produce fruit. Berries are also easy to maintain. They need a little bit of pruning – removing dead canes is especially important for blackberries. A little mulch and a little fertilizer applied once during the growing season, plus regular watering or rainfall will give you bowls full of beautiful, seasonal berries.