Spacing & sowing

Plant spacing

12 ft 4 in

In-row spacing

12 ft 4 in

Between rows

17 ft 3 in

Square-foot density

Not suited to SFG

Growing

Type

Fruit · Perennial

Botanical family

Mixed / other

Sunlight

Crops best in full sun; partial shade is tolerated.

Watering

Water while it establishes; once settled it copes with dry ground.

Feeding

Compost mulch in spring; it seldom needs feeding at all.

Frost tolerant

Yes

Flowering

April

Pruning

Winter prune into an open goblet, and pull off any suckers.

Through the year

• Apr–Apr Bud Break
• Apr–Jun Flowering
• Jun–Aug Fruit Set
• Aug–Sep Harvest
• Sep–Dec Leaf Fall
• Jan–Apr Leaf Fall

Companions

Comfrey, Foxgloves, Bluebells

Pests & problems

• Vine weevil Nut weevil grubs developing inside the kernels
• Gall mites Big bud mite swelling the buds
• Squirrels Squirrels, who take the crop the moment it fills
• Powdery mildew Powdery mildew dusting the leaves

Garden allies

Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. ★ companion plant

• Beneficial nematodes Steinernema & Heterorhabditis spp.
  Hunts Vine weevil

  Microscopic worms watered onto damp soil that hunt down soil-dwelling grubs and release a bacterium that kills them within days. Timing is the whole thing: warm, damp soil and a small target grub, which means late summer for most of what they are used against.

• Frogs & toads Anura
  Hunts Vine weevil

  A resident toad works the beds every night for slugs, cutworms, and weevils. Recruit them with water — even a sunken basin pond — plus damp shade and an upturned-pot toad house; skip the slug pellets that poison their prey.

• Ground beetle Carabidae
  Hunts Vine weevil

  Fast, glossy night hunters that patrol the soil surface for slugs, cutworms, and root-fly larvae. Give them daytime cover — thick perennial edges, stepping stones, a log — and skip the tillage that wrecks their burrows.

  Plant nearby LavenderMintThyme
• Hedgehog Erinaceus europaeus
  Hunts Vine weevil

  A European animal, and worth saying so plainly: there are no hedgehogs in North America, and the ally that does the same night shift here is the toad, the opossum or the ground beetle. Where they do occur, cut a gap in the fence and skip the pellets.