Give fruit bushes and trees a good feed so you send them into the new season in tip-top health, ready to provide you with a bumper harvest later this summer.
After a long winter hunkered down against the elements, gooseberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants and whitecurrants will be starting to wake up as spring warms up. Top fruit, too, like apples, plums and medlars are all sending out new leaves.
It’s at this time that they really benefit from a dose of extra nutrients. A slow-release feed of pelleted poultry manure, bonemeal or a balanced granular plant food releases goodness steadily over several months – you’ll find a good selection on sale in our garden centre here in Co. Limerick.
Supplement this with a sprinkling of sulphate of potash (or for organic growers rock potash) and you’ll really boost fruit and flower production. It’s an ideal way to replenish the resources of heavy-cropping fruits, and persuade those which didn’t crop well last year to perform a little better.
Scatter the feed on the soil’s surface below the trees or bushes according to the manufacturer’s instructions, covering an area equal to the spread of the branches – roughly the zone occupied by the roots. Gently fork in, and finish off with a nice deep mulch.