Fostering gooseberries

Press, 20 July 1979, Page 10

Fostering gooseberries

feme & People

Gooseberries are finding favour again and there is even talk of having them grown on a commercial scale. But of all the fruit most generally grown, gooseberry bushes would rate among the very lowest for proper condition and shape of plant. It is possibly this neglect, which is frequently attributable to the quality of plant initially offered for sale, that could have contributed to their decline in popularity. The thorns on some gooseberry plants are long, strong and viciously pointed; the over-zealous picker soon learns to be a little wary. And this is where shaping and pruning come in. To provide an accessible and easily manageable

gooseberry bush it should have a ground clearance of about 2.5 cm of clean stem, the branches radiating out from there. Bushes which spring up from the soil like a thicket soon become choked with weeds and are difficult, to say the least, to harvest fruit from. The best advice to anyone who has such an acquisition is to start afresh. Either grow your own plants from cuttings or buy desirable varieties which conform as closely as possible to the criteria for a well-shaped specimen. The fruit of the gooseberry is born on previous season’s and older wood, the best berries occurring on one to two-year-old shoots.

Pruning should be based on a regular renewal and thinning procedure. Systematic thinning of shoots and spurring back of older laterals plus the removal of central, trailing and sucker growth together with any shoots arising from below the crown of the stem should be maintained on an annual basis. This will help to keep the bush in a readily accessible form and encourage future development. Pendulous varieties, such as Levin Early and Farmer’s Glory, require a little more attention and need to be pruned back to an upward pointing bud in order to force them into more upright growth. Upright growers should be pruned to an outwardly placed bud and weak

growers should be pruned harder than the more vigorous ones which may otherwise respond to such treatment by producing a veritable jungle of growth. Generally, main branches should be kept well apart and vigorous fruit spurs can be maintained by annual extension and addition of young wood.

Gooseberry plants can be grown to fan-shaped, cordon and espalier systems. without too much difficulty, but it becomes more necessary to induce productive new growth by careful systematic pruning each year once the plant has become fully established.