15 types of soft fruit for your garden

Redcurrants are the plants known for clusters of red, often slightly sour berries. People put them in yogurt and they are often on cakes with forest fruits. They are easy to grow and can be in full sun but also tolerate some shade. By the way, there are not only red varieties available but also white currants and a cross between the two which produces pink. White and pink ones are less well spotted by birds and are often also sweeter. The color is slightly less spectacular in dishes, however.

Red

• Jonkheer van Tets (is often the variety you find in the supermarket, large berries and good yield)
• Rovada (large berries and long clusters)
• Rotet (tasty berry, moderate production)

White

• Witte Werdavia (best known for its use in desserts)
• Witte Parel (sweet taste)
• Witte Hollander (sweet, less susceptible to diseases)

Pink

• Pink Champagne (light pink color, particularly sweet)
• Rosalinn (light pink color, less sweet than Pink Champagne)
• Zoetewei (large clusters with sweet pink berries)

Blackcurrant is also called cassis berry. The berries taste like, you guessed it, cassis. That is also what I often make from them. A syrup that you dilute with water, which produces a delicious cassis flavor. The plants, just like the redcurrant, can thrive in the sun, but partial shade also works well.

Black

• Titania (good production, large and juicy berries)
• Ben Sarek (large juicy berries)
• Ben Nevis (good for jam and juice)

White

• Ojeblanc (same taste as the black one, only the berries are green in color)

Red

• Pax (thornless - good taste, low disease susceptibility, yield lower than varieties with thorns)
• Captivator (thornless - low disease susceptibility, taste is less than Pax)
• Hinnonmaki Red (strong growth and high yield, unfortunately not thornless)

Green

• Tatjana (thornless - high yield, thin skin, good taste)
• Mucurines (high yield, good taste, small, light green berry)
• Hinnonmaki Green (smaller berries, good taste and high yield)

The jostaberry is a cross between a blackcurrant, gooseberry, and Worcester berry. This results in a taste that resembles the blackcurrant but is slightly sweeter. So, a sweet blackcurrant. The size is also a lot larger than that of the blackcurrant. There are some varieties of jostaberries, but they are often only offered as jostaberries. You can order it here in the webshop.

Blueberries are sometimes wrongly called wild blueberries. They are not real wild blueberries, but American blueberries. They are related to our wild blueberry, which occurs in the Dutch forests. Forest soil is generally somewhat more acidic. Blueberries, like wild blueberries, have a preference for slightly acidic soil.

Where in the vegetable garden we prefer a pH between 6 and 7, blueberries prefer a slightly more acidic soil with a pH of 4.5 - 5.5. Growing blueberries works very well in pots, for example, where you can easily determine the composition of the soil yourself. In the open ground, it is a bit more difficult. Often peat is added to make the soil a bit more acidic, but the sandy soil in our garden already has a pH of 6, so the blueberries do just fine there despite the pH being just a bit too high.

Haskap berries taste quite similar to blueberries, only they are a bit easier to grow. They also require plenty of water and sun, but they do not need the acidic soil that blueberries require. A few years ago, haskap berries were still very sour, but due to breeding, there are better varieties on the market that truly taste like blueberries and can also produce high yields. Do note that you need 2 or more plants that cross-pollinate each other.

• Boreal Blizzard (super flavor and largest berries)
• Boreal Beauty (very large fruits, high yield)
• Strawberry sensation (large fruits, good flavor)

Raspberries come in 2 types: summer and autumn raspberries. The summer raspberry grows a cane in year 1, and this cane bears fruit in year 2. The autumn raspberry bears fruit on the canes that grew in the same year. Sometimes, autumn raspberries want to bear fruit once in the summer and then give a larger harvest in the autumn. Furthermore, there are 2 different colors of raspberries: red and yellow. Personally, I find the yellow ones the tastiest, as they are a bit sweeter.

Red

• Maling Promise (summer - sweet raspberry with medium-sized, red/pink color)
• Willamette (summer - large red fruits)
• Tulameen (summer - widely used in professional cultivation. Bright red and sweet in flavor)
• Autumn Bliss (autumn - fairly large fruits that are dark in color)

Yellow

• Fallgold (autumn - deep yellow/orange fruits, small but flavorful)
• Golden Everest (late summer - small fruit, light yellow)
• Valentina (summer - fairly large, deep yellow/orange fruits)

Blackberries are familiar to most people, often not even for their delicious fruits but rather for their nasty thorns. Fortunately, there are now thornless varieties on the market. These are all cultivated species that have no thorns and also produce larger fruits. I would always recommend choosing a thornless variety.

• Black Satin (medium-sized, sweet, and juicy fruits)
• Navaho (strong growth, sweet fruits)
• Triple Crown (large fruits with a strong flavor)
• Chester Thornless (strong growth, round and sweet fruits)

The black raspberry is truly a different species than the regular raspberry. This is one of my favorites, and the flavor is somewhere between a regular raspberry and a blackberry. Let's call it a sweet blackberry, shall we? Unfortunately, they are not yet thornless, as there is only one variety available at the moment, which is the Black Jewel.

I find all raspberry and blackberry hybrids very delicious. They are each slightly different and none are available thornless. We get very good yields from them, and the tayberry is definitely a favorite. It also does well in a spot with a bit more shade.

• Tayberry (very large fruits, tastes like raspberry)
• Loganberry (elongated fruits, sweeter than raspberry)
• Boysenberry (dark fruit, tastes more like blackberry than raspberry).

Merel's favorite fruit. The wineberry is also a member of the blackberry and raspberry family but is often less well-known. The fruits are small but super delicious. When left on the plant longer until overripe, they taste like wine. There are no specific varieties of wineberry. The plants are also very beautiful, with fine red hairs but also nasty thorns. You can order it in our webshop.

When people think of kiwis, they quickly think of the tropics, but they grow very well in the Netherlands. They are true climbing plants, so they need something to hold onto. For kiwis, it is important to have a male and a female plant for cross-pollination. There are varieties that are self-pollinating, but this often works only moderately well.

Hardy kiwis are related to normal kiwis but are a lot smaller. The plant also stays a bit smaller, making it easier for a smaller garden. Hardy kiwis also don't have hairs on the fruit, so they can be eaten with the skin. There are also self-pollinating hardy kiwis, but here too, the yield is a lot better with a male plant nearby.

• Issai (self-pollinating - bears better with a male plant nearby)
• Jumbo (female plant - extra large green fruits)
• Ken’s Red (female plant - red fruits)
• Geneva (female plant - brown fruit, high-yielding variety)
• Atlas (male plant)

There are so many varieties and flavors of grapes. Blue, white, pink, seedless, table grapes, wine grapes. I will mention below which grapes we have ourselves, because you could write a book about grapes.

• Palatina (white outdoor grape, very sweet with muscat aroma)
• Muscat Blue (blue muscat grape, large grapes with sweet muscat aroma)
• Suzi (white table grape, high yield, sweet, low disease susceptibility)

The choice of strawberries is also not to be underestimated. There are varieties that bear heavily once (early, mid, late) and there are varieties that keep bearing (everbearing) but only produce a few fruits at a time. There are red and white fruits. Personally, I would always choose everbearing varieties as the main crop to have harvests throughout the season, and supplement this with some plants of other types. This way, you spread the harvest over your season and always have something to snack on.

• Allegro (early) - Allegro is exceptional for an early variety and has good fruit quality and high yield. The fruits are very uniform, beautifully bright red, and have an excellent taste!
• Verdi (mid-early) - Verdi is a mid-early variety where the fruits form in June. Verdi fruits are juicy and sweet and have good shelf life. Verdi is low in disease susceptibility and is highly resistant to Phytophthora cactorum and Verticillium wilt.
• Falco (mid) - Falco is a new and highly productive, vigorous strawberry variety. The strawberries of this variety are quite large and maintain their good quality and taste despite, for example, a lot of rain or heat.
• Cadenza (late) - Cadenza is a late, single-bearing variety that produces strawberries with good taste and size. The fruits are quite firm and therefore also store well. The variety is low in disease susceptibility.
• Ostara (everbearing - high production, low disease susceptibility) - Ostara is an everbearing strawberry variety that produces fruits throughout the entire season. Ostara provides rich flowering and many juicy, sweet fruits. Ostara is a vigorous grower with a high yield of large fruits.