Growing Gooseberries
Fantastic tangy fruit for summer
I love eating gooseberries, there is something very English about them to me, maybe it’s the way they are used here, in flans, fools, crumbles etc or the fact that they are quite tart and different to other fruits.
I grow red and green gooseberries, they line the back of my fruit cage, their branches splayed out like outstretched arms carrying their wonderful fruit. Their relocation late last year has gone to plan, part of me feared the worst but they are thriving under cover and this year will be the first that I shall not be sharing the fruits of my labour with the local blackbird population.
More about what I shall do with the fruits later but they shall certainly feature on the June menus and especially paired with another seasonal favourite, mackerel.
I have (touching wood as I write) had few problems with pests on my gooseberry bushes, if you are going to get attacked then it is sure to be by the sawfly and not by one but three different species; the common, the lesser and the pale.
Look out for them laying their eggs at the base of the bush, once they hatch you’re in trouble. These insects can strip a gooseberry bush to pieces within a day, such is their ferocity. The one downside of my new location is that the bushes are more sheltered which helps to protect sawfly from its natural enemy, the wind.
To be honest I give my gooseberries very little attention, they are so tough in every other respect that I generally leave them to do their own thing. They get a good dose of potash in the spring, a quick prune and thats it.
Now I’ve wrote this I shall invaribly return to write about the damage sawfly has just inflicted on them!
Miles
just planted a goosebery bush myself. It’s a pretty small affair so I suspect some time before I can harvest anything from it.
As it’s little more than a cutting any idea how fast they grow or when one can expect to harvest fruit ?
Rod
June 1, 2008 @ 10:50 am
Rod,
You would be suprised at how quickly it will grow, you’ve probably missed the boat this year but you should be in for a decent crop this time next year.
Miles
June 1, 2008 @ 12:52 pm
Oooh…pretty. I grew a heat-tolerant variety in Virginia, and the first year a plague of birds descended on said gooseberry plant and ate…every…one…of the berries. Bastards.
I miss gooseberries, which are one of the few things you cannot grow well in California.
June 7, 2008 @ 1:46 am
Hank,
It used to be the only fruit bush that survived attack by anything other than myself! As much as I like to see birds in the garden I don’t want them anywhere my crops
Miles
June 7, 2008 @ 6:39 am