[Turnba]

Hi all

I have a fruit cage that I inherited on my allotment two years ago. The only plants that were on there (besides creeping buttercup and couch grass) were a blackcurrant bush and some raspberries. For that first Christmas I got two gooseberry bushes which I planted up after painstakingly weeding it over.

I put down wood chips to prevent the weeds, which has worked well, but the plants are doing really poorly. I have only had a few handfulls of berries from the green gooseberry, none from the red, and the blackcurrant bush gives next to no fruit. The soil is thick, thick clay, which I suspect is doing most of the damage.

I believe this is the right time of year to move shrubs, but since the cage structure is cemented in I would prefer to find a way to improve the soil without changing location.

Can I improve the soil keeping the plants in situ or do I have to dig them out?

[mumofstig]

Wood chips take nitrogen from the soil as they rot down, so wouldn't really have helped the plants.

Give the area a good weed and feed with BF&B,  then mulch with well rotted manure or garden compost