Selfsufficientish.com

I'm a bit disorganized at present,so not much notice.

Lidl had their yearly stock of fruit bushes come in yesterday(Thursday).4 for £5. Nowhere near as good as previous years,only one rasp cane per box (Vastly overpriced),Gooseberrys(bit small,but not bad),Blueberries(traditionally hopeless but Mrs.OJ insisted),and Blackcurrants...outstanding ,potted up you'd pay £4-5 at any garden centre.Blackcurrants may not be no.1 on your wishlist,(although their smell is strangely alluring),but if you need some,try these....the spaghetti a'lluvo is pretty good too.

I went to Lidls yesterday to get some of their 4m polytunnel cloches. I got those and came away with 4 Blackcurrent bushes as well!

Lidl & Aldi often seem to have suspiciously high-quality stuff on offer.

I didn't get them from either, but I found a local supplier that was de-stocking white currents, so I bought the entire stock of 4 plants. Don't people like white currents anymore?

I've planted cheap fruit bushes in the past and have regretted it. My husband bought me some raspberry canes from Pound Land a few years ago and I planted them alongside some I'd bought from a grower the year before. The Pound land canes produce fruits the size of a pea whereas those I bought from the grower and paid a lot more for produce lovely big fruits. Trouble is now they've all grown in together and I can't tell which are which until they fruit! I hope the bushes you are buying produce good fruit for you but I think I'll stick with Ken Muir's fruit bushes from now on!

See past posts,some of the stuff from lidls,is as good as ANYONES,and some of it's crap.Personally I wouldn't buy any plants by post.One of the nurseries I worked at used to produce Camellias for many of the supermakets.As a rule,they weren't the crap ones,but just varieties they were overstocked with.Much of the stuff at Lidl and Aldi comes from Dutch nurseries by and large their quality control is higher than that in the UK.Just make sure you have a good sort through.