I didn't want to hijack realfood's thread about raspberries - I wanted advice.
I'm thinking about growing windbreak plants at the allotment, because we're near the sea, and the winds can be very harsh, and shorten our growing season a lot.
Do you think raspberries would be good for this?
And does anyone have experience of using fruit bushes as a windbreak for their plot? Would others also work, like gooseberries and currants? Or do they themselves need shelter?
:-\
I grow my rasps as a windbreak to my allotment, but they need to be well tied in to wires or they will be damaged in Winter gales. Some wind control fabric would be useful. I also use gooseberries and red and white currants, jostaberries all grown as cordons, as a windbreak. They will easily grow to 2m and are easier to pick as well.
Thanks realfood - good to know someone's tried it and it can work. I think I'll start to build up a collection then. Maybe start with some raspberries this year.
I used to live in Cornwall, and the problem wasn't so much the wind, it was the salt it carried inland. Summer-fruiting raspberries would make a good screen (autumn-fruiting aones are cut down overwinter, so they wouldn't be there in the spring), but you still need to be aware of the salt problem.
I am on a very windy site,we have a large raspberry patch that helps alot,but read somwhere that sweetcorn can be left as a winter wind break,suppose it would help till the wee rasp plants get big!
Quoteautumn-fruiting aones are cut down overwinter, so they wouldn't be there in the spring
Doh! I never thought of that! I just wanted Autumn-fruiting ones, because all my other soft fruit is over by Aug. Spring to early summer is when I need the windbreak. In winter, the stuff is so hardy it doesn't care. It's May and June that are a real problem, because you'd like to be able to plant out squashes and beans, but the wind is too cold.
I'm not sure how much the salt affects things where we are - the site is perhaps 2/3 mile inland. How would salt air damage manifest itself?
Thanks, claybasket, good to know it works for you. I never grow sweetcorn, but it would be a nice high windbreak.
I was just reading about double cropping Autumn Bliss. Don't cut them down in the winter, let them fruit in the spring on the old canes, then cut them down. They then produce new canes for the autumn fruit. I did that with about half of my canes and it seemed to work. So, getting back to the thread (!), they might be OK as a windbreak!!
hmmm. Interesting!
I like the thought of leaving the sweet corn as a windbreak. I have problems with purple sprouting not surviving the winter. I shall have to think about that for next year. Like the raspberry idea as well. But without the leaves they am worried that they will not do a great deal durng the wnter.
From my experience, sweetcorn does not work as a windbreak over a Winter, as the foliage dies off and you are left with just the stalk.