Where better to pick fruit than your own garden? Soft fruits such as raspberries, gooseberries and grapevines are a good investment for smaller gardens where there may not be room for fruit trees.
What to do
In mid-winter, prune grape vines by cutting back strong sideshoots back to one bud. Cut back developing main stems by half their new growth.
Gooseberry bushes can become tangled and overgrown. In winter, prune out dead or diseased stems, and any crossing in the centre of the bush.
To prune blackberry or tayberry plants, cut out the fruited canes at ground level immediately after harvest and tie in new canes that have grown during the fruiting season.
Blackcurrant bushes need constant renewal to ensure heavy crops. For this reason, remove about one third of the oldest stems by cutting back to ground level.
Strawberry plants produce a number of runners bearing young plantlets. These should be cut off to conserve the plant's energy unless you want to propagate new plants.
Summer-fruiting raspberries are cut down after harvest and then replaced by the new young canes that will fruit the following year. Autumn-fruiting varieties should be cut to the ground in winter to make way for new canes that will grow from the base and fruit in the same year.
