Gooseberries
Introduction
Growing gooseberries is one of life’s pleasures, and not to be missed! They are remarkably easy to grow and care for, well suited to the British climate, and one of the earliest fruits to mature in summer.
Like tomatoes, a gooseberry can come in many different colours, including purple or red gooseberries, yellow gooseberries, and green gooseberries. There is also a great variety of sweetness level, with some tart types best suited for cooking, and dessert varieties which can be enjoyed straight from the bush.
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Planting
- Planting depth: cover root ball
- Planting spacing: minimum 1 m spacing between bushes in all directions
Harvesting
- For the best and sweetest flavour, allow the fruit to mature fully on the plant
- Eat fresh (either raw or cooked)
- Alternatively, turn into jams and jellies, or freeze
(inside)
(outside)
(fresh)
(stored)
= jar, = freeze, 
= store
Varieties
Gooseberries have a reputation for being sour and best used in cooking. This does not reflect the large range of gooseberry varieties and sweetness levels that are available. Whilst it is true that some gooseberries, especially green varieties, have a tart taste, there are many varieties that are almost as sweet as grapes but with a distinctive gooseberry character and flavour. For all gooseberries, the best flavour is found when the fruit is allowed to fully mature on the plant.
There are three common colours of gooseberries:
- Purple or red gooseberries
- Yellow gooseberries
- Green gooseberries
On my allotment I grow three varieties, each with their own character and each one I love dearly – they are worth every centimetre of growing space.
Gooseberry Careless
This produces big yellowy green fruit in very large quantities. It has grown extremely well. In its first year, I only had a handful of fruit as the bush took root (and I learned that I needed to use nets against birds). The following year the plant produced huge quantities of fruit, that also kept well on the bush, allowing my family time to eat our way through the harvest.
Gooseberry Hinnonmaki Yellow
The plant looks ugly, is low growing, and has thorns designed to protect Sleeping Beauty ever being found by her prince.
The fruit look small and unappealing compared to larger green varieties. The truth is that the fruit is simply delicious, exploding with sweetness in the mouth, and a perfect example of why I think gooseberries are one of the best kept secrets on an allotment.
Even better still, this bush throws off branches similar to how strawberry plants throw off runners, burying themselves in the soil and making it very easy (once established) to cut free the new baby bushes from the parent plant. Simply lovely.
Whinham’s Industry
This is an upright gooseberry plant that produces large amounts of delicious red gooseberries almost dripping off the branches.
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Growing
Gooseberries can forgive a lack of water, require very little pruning, and still produce large quantities of fruit.
Gooseberries are wonderfully self sufficient. Some gardeners even recommend deliberately treating gooseberries hard – with little water and little care – in order to produce the best fruit. I do not do this, but compared to many other plants at the allotment, my gooseberry bushes require little attention.
When to plant gooseberries? The best time to plant gooseberry bushes is when they are dormant (ie not in leaf) between the end of autumn and early spring. For all my fruit bushes, at initial planting I mix into the planting hole a good quantity of well rotted compost and manure.
During the spring, I apply a thick mulch of the best compost or rotted manure I can find. This is both to feed the bushes and keep the weeds down. After this, apart from pouring a watering can or two over each bush about once a week in hot weather, I find the plants do their magic all on their own.
Even though a gooseberry bush is pretty much self sufficient, many gardeners complain that their bush only produces a few fruit each year – or even remark that their bush is barren. At my allotment this phenomena has a simple solution – a net.
It is true that it is possible to be unlucky, perhaps the bush does not enjoy its soil, or the soil is not rich enough in nutrients, or that it has caught some disease. A late frost when the bush is flowering can be destructive.
However, most frequently, the absence of fruit is caused by birds. Birds can eat quickly and thoroughly, completely removing the fruit, even when it is only just forming. Squirrels, mice, and rats may like a nibble too. Covering with a net is a quick and easy solution.
If a neighbour already has a gooseberry bush, it is possible to propagate new bushes by taking cuttings. The ideal time for taking gooseberry cuttings is late summer or just after the last fruit has been picked. The easiest option is to look around the bush for branches that have lanced down into the soil and propagated. This is a gooseberry bush’s preferred way of spreading.
When you see this, wait for signs that the submerged branch has sunk roots – there should be leaf formation around the new shoot that emerges from the soil. Then snip! Put the cutting into compost and wait for nature to do its work. The cutting can be grown on in a pot, or planted out the following spring.
Some types of gooseberry naturally throw their branches upwards. The technique for taking a cutting needs to be slightly different for these varieties. After fruiting, look for about 15 cm long new branches (ones that do not look woody). Snip about four off with secateurs, ideally just below a set of leaves, and then plunge them into a pot filled with moist soil.
For the next few weeks ensure that the soil never dries out – and with luck within a couple of months there will be evidence of vigour in the cuttings, that can then be repotted and grown on as individual plants.