Fruit bushes/trees to make a living fence?

Posted by louisa on Friday 26 November 2010 in growing | 3 comments

I’ve just posted this question over at UKVegGardeners but thought I’d post it here too – all suggestions very gratefully received!

I’ve not really grown any fruit before but have big plans for 2011 (don’t we all?).

As well as getting some (currently on order) trees in and containers of soft berries etc, I’ve had an idea to kill two birds with one stone. We need a new divider between our garden and our neighbours – there hasn’t been a fence up to now but I want to discourage our dog & chickens from wandering over there – and we’d presumed we’d fit a paling wooden one.

But as there is a narrow bed where the fence will go, I’m wondering if rather than a boring wooden fence, whether we could use fruit bushes/trees to grow a living fence/mini hedgerow.

The row gets a decent amount of light but not full south-facing sunlight. We could easily “lose” 3ft or so to bushes, but the neighbours side would have to be
kept quite neat.

Any suggestions for things we could plant to achieve such a thing?

(One thing: there are a bajillion – I counted – blackberry bushes in the field on the other side of our house, so we’d rather avoid those if possible.)

Any ideas?

Super easy blackberry jam recipe

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 21 September 2010 in cooking, preserving, recipes | 11 comments

I love cooking but I have a surprisingly low tolerance for faff – particularly faff involving large quantities of sticky substances that need to sit for a long amount of time. I’m also very clumsy, live with an equally clumsy boy, and have less than graceful pets. In other words, preserves that involve the use of jelly bags are not for me.

Most blackberry jam recipes are more like blackberry jelly recipes – they involve straining out the juice and using that to make to the finished pulp-free seedless product. However, if you don’t mind partial berries and seeds, this blackberry jam is super easy and tastes really, really good!