I recently planted a few of my pot grown plants into the ground, and thought I’d buy 2 more blueberry to make it a complete grid.
So I bought 2 more (both a different variety for some variety, no pun intended). Whilst reading the label I noticed that it said max height/spread is 2m.
I decided to take a risk and plant them with exactly 1.2m spacing each way into a grid.
Looking at backyard orchard culture, etc…this spacing should be fairly feasible right?
(Planned/anticipated the bushes on the left will overhang the walkway.)
On the left hand side (from bottom to top), you have gooseberry, blueberry, blueberry, and blackcurrent.
On the right hand side (from bottom to top) you have blueberry, gooseberry, blueberry, and gooseberry.
Picking berries from the inside of the grid will be difficult in a few years. If you prune aggressively it should not be a problem. What varieties of gooseberries did you plant? That could make a big difference regarding the space that you have.
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I wouldn’t worry about brushing against the blueberries while picking. The gooseberries…won’t be a good time. You could train the gooseberries to be more “flat” aligned vertically with the rows. Just don’t “take some off the top” to prune the blueberries or you’ll take off the fruiting buds.
Hi Zombie, thanks for your feedback.
On the right, there is a hinnonmaki red and a hinnonmaki yellow. (The one on the left I can’t remember the name, but is is a thornless variety).
I have another hinnonmaki red in different spot which is a couple years old, but it’s still compact with pruning. So hopefully, they wont take up too much space in the end.
The thornless variety on the other hand has/is growing much faster. In a few months, it’s almost put on as much growth as the hinnonmaki did in 2 years…don’t know whether it’s due to variety or something else/position.
(I love gooseberries, I honestly don’t know why they aren’t as popular as grapes!)
Haha, yes.
Gooseberries are surprisingly lethal. What’s worse, unlike the thorns on roses, I find the spikes on gooseberries are hard to spot.
I don’t know if anyone else does this, but at planting and every year I snip or break off all the thorns. (And yes, I got pricked a few times today - disinfectant at hand). Mainly do it due to kid/s around in garden. (Who might forget to obey the command to stay away from the patch of death/gooseberries).
I’ve thought about doing that on gooseberries (and jujubes), but never got around to it. They would probably heal fine, particularly if it’s done on the green, new growth thorns, I would think? The thorns did seem to “encourage” a deer last year to move on and browse something else instead (all my tomato plants 
). I may give it a try on the ones I’ve got growing fenced off. Good to know I’m not the only person who’s had the idea. 
Yeah, that matters a lot @PearTree The Hinnomakis aren’t large. Hinnomaki Red is more vigorous. It might get 3 ft. tall after a time. Hinnomaki Yellow is downright tiny, almost to a fault. They’re both really good varieties. Both are very high flavor. Red has something of the richness and flavor of raspberries, I find. Yellow is very rich and balanced with little of the zip common to gooseberries. Yellow has trouble holding its own here, though. It barely gets 16” tall and is easily overtaken. It’d be a good one for intensive management, and would benefit from some extra fertility.
Now if you’d said you planted ‘Black Velvet’ that’d be a different story altogether. It’s a monster, easily 6-7 ft long canes that arch over and root, making more. It’s a rugged one, and can hold its own. Luckily for me, the fruit is excellent.
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@hobilus Did a good job describing the Hinnomaki Gooseberry attributes. I am going to guess that your other variety that you described as thornless is Jeanne. If so, that is another petite variety, slightly larger than Hinnomaki yellow. Other gooseberries that are described as thornless include Captivator and Friend.
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Jahn’s Prairie is another thornless one that’s pretty good.
Oh yes, they do heal up fine. The green/new growth thorns can be pinched, and any older thorns do snap off quite readily without peeling off too much bark (i.e. won’t/shouldn’t see any green when breaking off the thorns/s if you do it carefully).
Now that you mention it, the hinnomaki yellow did seem less vigorous compared to the red.
Hopefully as they’re not the largest variety this should give me some more space to work with in the grid - regarding the blueberries.
