Hello, I'm Liz Zorab and this is Byther Farm.
Today I'm going to show you how to
take cuttings so that you can have more
fruit plants for free.
This is one of my
favorite blackcurrant bushes, it's a
variety called Big Ben. It fruits nice and
early but with really big, big very
juicy and tasty blackcurrants. Some of
them the size of a marble, so I
definitely would like some more of these.
It's very simple, what I want to
do is take cuttings of wood that isn't
very green at the top, but also isn't the
brown hard old wood from last year.
I'm going to take a piece that's about
ten to twelve inches long, snip it off of
my secateurs, then I'm going to gently run
my hand down it and remove the lower leaves.
You could put these on the
compost heap or as I'm doing, I'm adding
them to the floor to become compost and
I'm stripping them down until it's just a
couple of leaves at the top. And then the
next thing I'm doing is very rapidly
popping them into a plastic bag, so they
don't lose any more moisture than
necessary. Straight into a big bag and
I'm going to take half a dozen of these.
And the reason for taking all those
leaves off and just leaving a couple at
the top is that the couple at the top will
photosynthesize, so that's no problem.
But an awful lot of water will be lost
through transpiration from all these
other leaves. And the ones that are under
the soil, they would just rot
and that would pose a risk of infection.
So they only need a couple of leaves at
the top and that will do them.
And next I'm going to fill this pot, this
particular one is a 10 inch, but it
doesn't really matter what size you use.
I'm going to fill this pot with compost. This
is a store-bought multi-purpose compost
based on coir. I'm also going to add in a
handful of soil from the raised beds
because that will add a few microbes
into this soil. There we go, there's my
pot with compost in it and a couple of
handfuls of soil from a raised bed.
I'm just knocking it against the floor which
will help the compost settle a bit and
reduce the number of air gaps in there.
I also have some organic rooting powder,
but it really doesn't matter whether you
use this or not.
Last year I didn't use it and I had a
100% success rate with my
currant cuttings. I haven't chosen
this particular brand for any reason
other than it's an organic one.
So taking one cutting out of the bag, pop
it into the hormone rooting powder and
as you can see it's just a very fine
coating on it. It's not big clumps, it
doesn't need to be in big lumpy clumps,
just this very fine covering will do.
I've used this just to make and start a
little hole, but you don't need to, you
can just push it straight down into the soil
near the edge. I'm just firming the
compost a little bit around the top and
then i'll repeat the process all around
the edge of the pot.
Because I took seven cuttings I'm
popping one right in the middle as well.
I wouldn't normally put one in the
middle, I would just leave them around
the edges. I'm not pushing down hard,
I'm just letting the soil make a bit of
contact with the cutting.
There we go!
Next thing, of course, is to label them. You can
put a label in the top or as I've done,
popped it on the side. No doubt this
won't fade over the winter, but it will
it will help me distinguish one from the
other. So the next thing to do is to pop
that in a quiet corner. Somewhere where
it will get rained on and somewhere
where you will remember to water it if
we have a long dry spell. And in a few
months time you should see roots
popping out of the bottom of the pot, like
this. And these are some white currants I
took this time last year, now they are
quite pale in color because there's no
nutrients left in this compost and they
really, really need to get into the ground.
So one of my jobs for this week
is to find exactly what I want these to
go and get them planted. I've just
taken one out of the pot to show you and
there we go, lots of lovely roots, this
is where I cut it, popped it into the
soil this time last year and all
these lovely roots, particularly these
little fibrous roots, are all going to help
this plant grow. Now obviously, now I've
pulled it out of the pot I need to get
this into the ground very quickly.
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This is one of my favorite red currant
bushes and I'm going to do pretty much
the same thing.
Take the cuttings but this time rather
than putting them in soil, I'm going to
put them on the kitchen windowsill in a
glass of water. I've done this method
quite successfully with softwood
cuttings, so ones taken in the summer, but
not with a semi right cutting, which is
when the stem is just starting to
go brown, but hasn't actually gone woody yet.
So safety first I've locked the
secateurs so they can't damage me.
I'll take the lower leaves off the cuttings,
and straight into the bag.
So there we are, let's get them inside.
The advantage to doing some of these
inside is that the temperature over the
winter is usually slightly warmer in
your house than it is outside.
The disadvantage is when it comes to
planting it out, which I'll talk about in a
minute. So I've got a nice tall jar, this
one had some sort of pasta or curry
sauce in it and they were given to me, a
whole load of them given to me, by a
friend. So just to pop in some water, make
sure that you've only got just a couple
of leaves left at the top and then
simply stand it in the water.
And put that onto the windowsill. As with
so many things - pros and cons. Here
are the cuttings I took in June, 21st of
June 2018 and they were with softwood
cuttings, so the the stems were still very
green and soft and flexible, but they've
done really well. There are a mass of
roots in there and all I did was
have it on the window sill. When I saw
the water level had got low, I topped it
back up, just kept an eye on it, watched
them grow. Now I started off with a few
more than this,
some of them I've given to friends.
Very recently I've spotted some real
signs of distress in these leaves, this
desperately needs to get into some soil.
So taking softwood cuttings on the
kitchen windowsill
its great success for me, it's very easy.
We'll see in a few months time how those
red currants are doing. The only problem
that I find with doing it this way is
that you have this mass of roots which
needs to go into the soil and you need
to get soil contacting them and I
feel there's a risk that you could
damage the roots so as you're getting
the soil around them, so they do need
extra care when you're putting them up.
So there you go,two simple methods to
increase your fruit plant stocks, just by
taking cuttings in a jam jar on your
windowsill and out in the garden, where, as
long as they aren't left to completely
dry out, they should be fine. Just a quick
word of precaution, obviously I'm talking
about leaving them outside in a
temperate climate in the UK, you'll need
to make a judgment about the area that
you live in and whether they need to be
inside in the shade because it's so hot
or in a poly tunnel or under glass
if you're somewhere very cold.
Well that's it for me today, I'm heading back out
into the garden to plant those white
currant bushes that rooted from last
year's cuttings.
And so wherever you are in the world and
whatever you've got planned for today I
hope it's a good one
and I also hope you'll join me again tomorrow!