Green gardening: Growing gooseberries

Gooseberries are grown mainly as bushes and grow best in well-drained but moisture-retaining soil, and they thrive in full sun or partial shade. Do not plant gooseberries in frost pockets; frost may prevent fruit formation.

• For the average family, six to nine bushes should provide enough fruit.
• Buy plants two or three years old, and plant between mid-fall and early spring.
• Double-dig the soil and work in plenty of manure or garden compost. Plant bushes one and a half to two metres (five to six and a half feet) apart.
• Support them upright with five- by five-centimetre (two- by two-inch) stakes about one and a half metres (five feet) high.
• Among the best varieties, Pixwell can be grown throughout most of the country, but it is thick-skinned.
• Hinnomaeki (red) and Hinnomaeki Yellow are flavourful and hardy.
• Captivator is thornless with small red fruit.
• Poorman has very sweet fruit.

• Each spring apply a mulch of mature compost topped with five centimetres (two inches) of wood chips or bark mulch to prevent the soil from drying out and to keep down weeds.
• To prevent root damage, do not remove weeds with a hoe or a fork.
• Pull away any suckers that grow from the stem or roots.
• Water the bushes only in dry summer spells.
• Gooseberries growing in well-prepared soil may not need any additional feeding beyond the spring application of compost. If plants seem to need a boost, try watering them with a fish emulsion solution or compost tea.In winter, firm in any plants lifted by frost.
• Birds feed on buds, so protect bushes with netting or cotton threads.
• At blossom time, shield bushes from frost at night with heavy netting, but remove it during the day to allow access to pollinating insects.

• Start picking gooseberries for cooking when they are the size of large peas.
• Thin out on each branch so that remaining berries will reach a good size for eating fresh or for using in pies.
• The thinned fruits should be eight centimetres (three inches) apart.
• Do not pick any fruit for dessert until it is fully ripe.

• Aphids. The signs are leaves that are curled or blistered, often with reddish tinge or shoot tips that may be distorted. Spray with miscible oil in mid- winter to kill eggs. Use insecticidal soap for heavy infestations.
• Gooseberry sawfly. If leaf tissues are eaten, the cause is the larvae of the gooseberry sawfly. Handpick and crush larvae or for serious infestations, spray with pyrethrins.
• Botrytis (fungus). Fruits have grey mouldy deposits. Leaves often show brownish to black areas. In severe cases, twigs die back. Use Bordeaux mixture, also called Bordo Mix, which is a mix of copper sulfate and slaked lime used as a fungicide. Spray before blossoms open; repeat after flowers open and until fruits mature.
• Powdery mildew (fungus). Seen as white powdery masses on leaves, shoots, fruits; later, masses turn brown, and shoots become distorted. Cut off affected shoots in fall. Spray regularly with a potassium bicarbonate product or wettable sulphur.