Kitchen Garden Forum

I'm planning to buy my first gooseberries. I'd assumed I would just buy bushes. I'd also heard that they do best as a mini hedge left to run a bit wild!
However, on the Chris Bowers website they suggest that you get the best results from cordons.
I'd like a mix of varieties including proper dessert goodberries. Mostly to grow on heavy clay.

Thoughts please.

Hi Sandy, If you choose a very thorny variety like Black Velvet it will be easier to pick if you grow them as a cordon, but on the whole I think you get a better crop (they've more branches anyway) from an ordinary bush. They are easy to prune.

My favourites are Pax, a thornless, nice red good flavoured dessert one and Hinnonmaki Yellow, also lovely flavoured and not too thorny. I really can't see the point of picking them at the green bullet stage. They taste horrible and it is much better getting one that tastes nice and letting it ripen. These two varieties don't seem prone to mildew either.

The red ones are also very useful for setting strawberry jam. Just two or three chopped up very small mixed with the strawberries give a very good set and you can't tell they are there.

We like Pax too and we also have Hinnonmaki Yellow. Then we have lots that came from cuttings of an unknown variety!

All are delicious - they sweeten if they are left to mature for long enough. I did try to grow a gooseberry cordon but it had other ideas and wanted to grow as a bush. All the rest of ours are bushes - I just thin out the branches and try to keep an open centre as most instructions for pruning advocate.

I only have one 'Invicta' so have nothing to compare it with. It is a vigorous bush that produces masses of fruit each year. Taste is excellent especially if you allow the fruits to ripen to a pale yellow. Fruits are hairless and with thinning will grow large. As the catalogues say it is resistant to mildew.
One bush provides us with a lot of fruit - far more fruit that we need so bear this in mind if you thinking of several bushes.
One important point: bushes are far better when grown on a short single leg (9 -12") at the base. It makes pruning and picking so much easier. Always prune to give an open centre.

John

I like the idea of using them to help set jam.
John, no disrespects, but my OH says there is no such thing as too many goosberries

You can leave gooseberries to run wild, sandy_v, and they'll still crop well, so growing them as a hedge you'll still get a good crop. We prune fruit mostly for our own convenience; to keep them within bounds, to keep their appearance, and to give us access for picking. It's this last point you need to keep your eye on with gooseberries, them being so thorny and all. John's got the right idea with growing them on a leg, which also keeps the lower bows from arching and the fruit spoiling where it touches the ground. This also makes them easier to pick by a country mile.

We inherited an allotment a few years ago and there was a 5 foot high gooseberry hedge in it. At least 3 feet thick and about 15 feet in length. Magnificent! It obviously had started off as just a few, in a row, but had suckered itself over the years.
Fruited extremely well too.
It never ever got gooseberry sawfly though, which surprised me as it had never been treated or sprayed. My bushes in the garden are regularly attacked by the dreaded sf and I have to keep on top of the spraying every year.

Diane, to stop the cycle of the sawfly each year, put a large collar of cardboard round the base of the bush. They will drop off and you can gather up the cardboard and burn it. This will prevent them from overwintering in the soil.

Beryl.

Thank you Beryl.....I'll do that this year. That will flummox them