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Fruit of the month

Cranberries

Fruit of the Month

Save £5 on cranberries

Kitchen Garden readers can buy Cranberry ‘Early Black’ and make a massive saving of £5! ‘Early Black’ is a vigorous, bushy variety ideal as ground cover or for pots. One plant in a 9cm (31¼2in) pot will cost £8.95 inc p&p while three plants are on offer at £21.85, saving £5.

To order call 0870 950 5922 (open 8am to 8pm, 7 days a week) or send cheques made payable to D T Brown to Kitchen Garden Cranberry Offer, D T Brown, Rookery Farm, Joys Bank, Holbeach St Johns, Spalding, PE12 8SG. Delivery within 28 days.

Like so many other fruits these days, cranberries are attributed with many health-giving benefits, but in this case the hype is actually true!
Packed with antioxidants, which are thought to help prevent serious and common diseases such as heart disease and cancer, cranberries also contain proanthocyanidins (PACs). These, it has been discovered, prove that the berries’ long held reputation for helping with the prevention of urinary tract infections is indeed true. PACs are thought to work by preventing bacteria such as E.coli from sticking to the wall of the tract. In the same way, research suggests that regularly drinking cranberry juice can reduce the risk of gum disease and stomach ulcers. Not only that, but a glass of cranberry juice can contain up to 100 per cent of an adult’s recommended daily amount of vitamin C.

Cranberries are common plants of heathland all over the northern hemisphere including the UK and that is the key to the conditions required to take care of them on the plot or in the garden.
This plant loves a moist, acid soil with a pH of just 4-5.5. Few of us have this in our gardens – which is just as well as we wouldn’t be able to grow much else – so the options are to grow the plants either in pots filled with ericaceous (lime-free) compost, or to grow the crop in a pit or raised bed, filled with the same material.
Pots are fine if you just want a taster of home-grown fruit, which in reality is all most of us are likely to produce, although there is a bonus – as well as providing a crop of healthy fruit, the plants are pretty, especially in the autumn as the leaves turn from green to fiery red.
However, if you are keen to grow a larger crop to make your own sauces or for dried fruit, then a raised bed is a good option. The advantage over a pit is that lime from the surrounding soil is less likely to leach into the planting hole and raise the pH too much.

Most materials will do to retain the lime-free compost – tanalised timber, reconstituted uPVC boards such as Link-a-bord – in fact anything lime free (ie not limestone or bricks with lime-mortar attached).
Despite the fact that cranberries love moisture – and need to be kept wet during the summer months, they should not stand in water and some drainage is needed to take away the excess. Raised beds are ideal for this although the soil beneath should be dug over and grit added if necessary to allow the water to get away. After cultivating the soil, place a layer of soil covering fabric over the ground to help prevent the roots from growing through into the lime and to slow the transit of water through the bed. In pots a layer of crocks should have the same effect.

For more advice, see this month's issue, available to buy online!