Soft fruits for shade or part shade

Alternative idea: Plums/Cherry Plums can be grown as hedges (5£ for a 1m tree ive seen, then 1-4 per meter) and theyll still fruit if you want something more permanent. Cherry Plums are delicious little things, theyre edible underripe too which is wierd. Dont know many fruits like that. They fall off when fully ripe though which is maybe why they arent cultivated. The farmer chops somebodies plum hedging back to 1.5m every other year and it still flowers well.

Wild damsons/sloes seem to sucker from the roots up to 50cm away but ive not seen plums or cherry plums do that.

I grew alpine strawbs from seed, theyre lovely and fruit almost all year in the sun but the fruit are really quite small. Maybe twice the size of the wild ones. They dont spread so you have to dig them up and pull them into clumplets to propagate.
Ive heard Ugni Molinae is shade tolerant, ive planted some but only a year ago so I cant comment. Ive planted Paris rhasberry also but still young.

Rhubarb is shade tolerant but expect a small crop.
Elder is also shade tolerant but with how much wild elder is around me I wouldnt bother personally unless your ground is boggy.

You can grow grapes quite high up and the leaves are edible as Dolmades, but theyre quite beastly and take a lot of space. Mine wants to grow 4m in every direction every year.

 

Thankyou @Adam I. Maybe some hedging would be a good idea. I have heard of growing country -style hedging with blackberries growing through for instance. I will have a look at cherry plums, they sound interesting.

I suppose most hedging would take longer to establish than soft fruits. I would love to grow both. Maybe it is possible!

 

If you get the 1m ones it should fruit within 2-3 years. slower than soft fruit true but itll last many decades

 

Thankyou. @Adam I, I feel inspired to try.

 

I have had some fruit trees not fruit ever though so (we even have a 30 y/o kiwi that hasnt flowered since I was born) Maybe where you already want a hedge!

 

I have a Czar plum, on rigorous rootstock and I only started seeing flowers around its age of ten. Maybe five or six flowers a year and no fruits. At least it didn't die, like my pear and peach trees. I know better now not to try peach or pear again!

 

Maybe your soil is really nutrient deficient? Do you fertilise esp. with phosphorous and trace minerals? We have two peaches and they fruited within 1 and 2 years, they get bad leaf curl though.

 

As Adam says above you could be very nutrient deficient.
As you are on "free draining sandy soil" I wonder if they are just too dry.
How much organic material did you add when planting your plum; do you mulch heavily every year. Sandy soils will take as much organic material as you can throw at it. It would increase water and nutrient retention and also general soil health.

 

Your kiwi is likely to be either a male or female. It takes two to tango unless it's one of the more recent hermaphrodite varieties.

 

It hasnt flowered so we dont know
We thought maybe we were pruning it wrong but I dont think wed see none. dunno. Grows like 10m a year though.

 

Sounds like a female plant. No-one growing them nearby? If not...she'll need a boyfriend or a hermaphrodite, self-fertile variety to get it on....

 

Thankyou, @Adam I. I had sort of given up on it, with just some mulching and compost added a few times a year. That area could be a bit depleted nutritionally, because there was weed suppressing membrane and there were bits near the plum that I only removed after planting. The soil is not very thick and disappears alot. The area isn't that flat, so after heavy rain, it does tend to drain away from the plum tree. I think I will try scheduling a feeding regime. Thankyou for jogging me into action. Do envy your peaches! Do you protect them much in winter?

 

Thankyou @NigelJ, it sounds as though it would be worth my treating the plum tree better. I will draw up a schedule and see what happens. I also pruned it last summer for maybe the first time, which was also probably remiss of me (I should have started formative pruning when it was a bit younger).

 

Just to add, the plum tree is is a sunny area, but the conversation moved in a different direction, which is fine. The shaded area is elsewhere!

 

It will take until next year to have any effect at tyhe earliest, maybe several.