It took me all day to remove a further infestation of willowherb from around the fruit cage. It’s a devil of a job as the little rosettes of green are underpinned by a dense network of tiny fibrous roots which also have to be dealt with. It was not ideal timing as the ground is still claggy from all the recent rain, but I wanted to plant some new bare root raspberries (Tulameen & Joan J) and a jostaberry so needed to clear the ground first.

Awkward work, and required some pretty agile activity around the gooseberry prickles – but all done now and I’ve instated a pathway through the area that should make it easier to pick the autumn raspberries which become a bit of a jungle. The standard gooseberry is doing fine, despite its rather unbecoming support system necessitated some years ago by its collapse due to a massive load of fruit.