Kitchen Garden Forum

OK, so I am nearly in a position whereby I will soon be wanting to move a great many established plants across to my new allotment. Question: now that frosts are beginning to hit, does this mean that the plants will all become dormant?
I'm going to try and move a tayberry that has been in position for about five years and also my summer rasperries, which produced a fine crop last year. Do they become immediately dormant following a frost. If so, is it just a question of digging them up and replanting them? Will they benefit from a slug of comfrey tea upon being replanted? Will they produce fruit again in the summer given that they have been moved?
Because of work restrictions, I will have to dig them up in the evening (in the dark!) and perhaps leave them overnight in my back garden before transporting and replanting the following lunch time. Should I do this as bare root plants or would it be better to keep some form of soil around the roots? If they are dormant, do they still benefit from fertiliser or anything else I might usually apply to pep them up a bit? I often put a top dressing of manure around them during the winter. Will this help?
Later, I will have to move a jostaberry, which is a big plant. Anybody any experience of doing this?
In comparision, rhubarb and strawberry plants are easy!

Barry,
As far as I'm aware, plants don't just become 'dormant' after a first frost. Plants generally tend to go dormant gradually after losing their leaves and/or shutting down for the winter to conserve their energies until the new invigorative growth of the spring.

Better now to lift and move when plants are becoming dormant, as less shock to their system. Try and keep soil to the roots if you can as it will lessen the shock with cold air/frosty temperatures.

Other than that, I can't advise you further, as I'm only just about to get into fruit growing myself.
I wish you lots of luck.

By all means prepare the ground as books would advise you, but other than that, don't feed them now. Wait till the spring, when you want them to burst into life again. Definitely not now.

But I assume you water them in? So why not some comfrey tea to help them over the trauma?

Hi Barry,
I feel that it would be a waste of Comfrey Tea used at this time of the year. What is needed really are long term fertilizers such as Horn and Hoof, Bone Meal and other such more solid fertilizers which are, by comparison, very slow but long acting.
JB.

I do have available lots of manure I can use to prepare the soil prior to planting. I am concerned however about that amount of liquid a transplanted bush needs. My wife showed me an Amateur Gardening article, which suggests transplanted plants needs lots of liquid to help get them established 'rapido'. What do you reckon the odds are that a 5-year old Tayberry plant (which spreads out over 8 feet) will survive?

Barry, when they are leafless they will not loose much water, unless it is a very exposed site.

Evergreens are normally best moved in late winter early spring, deciduous starting from end of leaf fall.

I reckon your wife's leaflet refers to moving stuff in the green during warmer weather. Then you will have reduced the rootstock when the leaves need a constant water supply.