How to Grow Soft Fruit in Pots

You don’t need a big garden to start growing your own soft fruit. You can grow all manner of delicious soft fruit in pots and containers on your patio or outdoor space going spare.

Our Simpsons garden experts have come up with their beginner’s guide on how to grow your own soft fruits. Imagine eating a bright, ripe blueberry straight off the vine, or using your own homegrown strawberries to elevate a cocktail or two!

It’s easy to grow your own fruit, so what are you waiting for?!

Top 5 Fruits to Grow in Pots

1. Blueberries
2. Gooseberries
3. Blackcurrants
4. Blackberries
5. Strawberries

Blueberries

Blueberries don’t get enough attention in our opinion. There are few things more pleasurable than eating a sun-warmed blueberry straight off the plant.

Blueberries are a very easy plant to start you on your road to having a fruity patio.

They need some good acidic (ericaceous) soil to thrive, which you can get in Simpsons all year round.  Mix this soil 50/50 with potting soil and feed once a week with ericaceous plant food. Try to water them with rainwater as this will help keep the soil acidic too.

The fruit will be ready once they turn from green to (wait for it) blue, and can be eaten as they are, frozen, made into jams, or a lovely ingredient for a summer cocktail in the sun.

Simpsons has blueberry plants as well as a range of other soft fruit plants in the garden centre ready to add some fresh, homegrown fruit into your life. Click here for more tips on growing your own fruit and vegetables .

Gooseberries

Gooseberries are a great sweet treat straight off the stalk, or fantastic in a multitude of desserts.

Apply an organic, balanced fertiliser at the end of each winter to give the plants a good start and place them in the shade outdoors. They’ll need water just once a week – every three days if the rain has stayed away (aye, right).

Caterpillars love these plants and the birds love the berries too! Pluck the creeping caterpillars off the leaves when you see them and if the birds take a fancy to your berries, cover them with a net or in a cage.

Your gooseberries will be ripe for the picking in early summer and can be frozen, preserved, or they are best eaten straight away when they are at their ripest.

Blackcurrants

Whack them on your porridge, whizz them into a smoothie, or posh up a pile of ice cream! Blackcurrants are a great summer fruit that can be grown in a pot.

Any currant is a very easy fruit to grow in a pot or small garden. Plant them in a large pot in the spring and give them a feed with liquid fertiliser through the growing season and you will have lovely berries to harvest come July/August.

Like a gooseberry, birds love a blackcurrant. So keep an eye out for those pesky berry pirates and put a net over your plants if necessary.

Blackberries

Like with all our berries buddies above, blackberries are great just to have around to enjoy when ripe or saved in a preserve or frozen. Kids will love just picking them straight off the plant and enjoying right away.

You can get your blueberry plant in a pot from Simpsons, ready to take root on your patio or outside space, Water often – 3 times a week – during growing season and you can use tomato food to give the plant that extra boost in hope of a bumper berry harvest.

Strawberries

Strawberries are great British summer favourite. Every July Wimbledon is on the telly and the UK eats strawberries by the skip-load.

They are great on desserts, as well as a firm favourite in gins and cocktails to be enjoyed in the that glorious Scottish sun.  Thankfully they are dead easy to grow in hanging baskets and pots.

Strawberries love the sun. Try to get them 6-8 hours’ worth of sun and put them in a pot/container that has drainage holes. Much like the rest of us, strawberries hate a soggy bottom! Use the old fingertip trick – plunge your finger into the and it should be on the cusp between dry and wet. If it’s drier than that – get that plant watered!

Give the strawberries some fertiliser in early spring to keep them nice and healthy and then keep an eye out for any bugs or diseases. Leaf colour is always a good indicator of plant health. If it’s looking a little brown, check to see if there are any little critters causing concern.

At Simpsons we can help get you started growing your own soft fruits. We have all manner of soft fruit plants potted and ready to go. As well as any soil, plant food or equipment you might need. Drop in for some advice from our gardening experts on how to grow soft fruit today!