Gadenin日本語Get the appDormant season: prune, feed, mulch, net
The bush is bare and this is when almost all the structural work happens. Prune in the second half of dormancy rather than the first, so the wounds are exposed for a shorter time and so you can see which buds birds have taken before deciding which branches to keep. Build the open goblet: clear the center, shorten side shoots to two buds, tip the leaders by a quarter, remove one or two of the oldest branches at the base.
With the bush bare you can also reach the ground under it, so weed by hand now rather than in midsummer with fruit and thorns in the way. Then feed with a balanced fertilizer high in potash plus a handful of sulfate of potash over the root area, and mulch 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 cm) deep, keeping the mulch off the leg. If birds strip buds in your garden, the net goes on now, not in spring, because bud stripping happens while the bush looks completely inert.
Bare-root planting also belongs here. Anything you are moving, replacing or adding goes in while the bushes are dormant and the ground is workable.
Bud break to flowering: watch, do very little
The buds swell and break, and the small greenish flowers follow. Gooseberries are largely self-fertile and pollinate themselves without help, but they are worked heavily by early bees, so anything that keeps bees around the bush at flowering is worth having and nothing that discourages them is. Do not spray the open flowers.
Late frost while the flowers are open will destroy that portion of the crop. If a hard frost is forecast on a still clear night, throw row cover over the bush in the evening and take it off in the morning; leaving it on all day cooks the flowers and keeps pollinators out. This is also the point to make sure the net does not sit against the bush, because a net touching open flowers costs you pollination.
Water only if the ground is genuinely dry. Rain usually covers this stage.
Fruit set to thinning: the busiest six weeks
Once the petals fall, the fruitlets swell fast and three things happen at once. This is the critical watering window: a dry fortnight now causes the bush to shed set fruit. This is also when sawfly arrives, so the weekly inspection of the leaf undersides low in the center of the bush starts here and does not stop until leaf fall. And four to six weeks after flowering comes the thinning pick, taking off every other berry while they are hard, green and marble-sized, for cooking.
Get the order right within a week and the season goes smoothly. Check for sawfly, thin the fruit, water thoroughly if dry. That combination doubles the size of the remaining fruit and removes most of the risk of losing the crop to grubs.
| Stage | Main job | The judgement call |
|---|---|---|
| Late dormancy | Prune to an open goblet, feed, mulch, weed | How many old branches to remove: one or two a year, no more |
| Bud break | Check the net is clear of the bush | Whether birds have taken enough buds to change the pruning |
| Flowering | Frost protection only if forecast | Row cover overnight against frost, off by morning for the bees |
| Fruit set | Start weekly sawfly checks, water if dry | Whether chewed leaves are sawfly or something harmless |
| 4 to 6 weeks after flowering | Thinning pick of hard green fruit | Take every other berry, more if the set is very heavy |
| Midsummer | Shorten side shoots to five leaves, net the fruit | Leave the leaders alone; only side shoots get cut |
| Ripening | Pick over several visits as berries soften | Touch and translucency, not color or size |
| After picking | Water, remove the net, clear fallen leaves | Whether mildew was bad enough to change spacing or feeding |
| Leaf fall | Rake and remove leaves, check for dead wood | Which bush is due for a heavier renewal cut this winter |
Midsummer and ripening
Once the new shoots have firmed at the base, shorten every side shoot to about five leaves and leave the leaders untouched. This opens the bush to light and air, removes the soft tips that mildew starts on, lets you see the fruit hanging along the branches, and halves the winter pruning job. Net the fruit before it starts to color, on a frame that holds the mesh clear of the branches.
Ripening runs over ten days or more, with the sunny side of the bush ahead of the shaded side, so pick over several visits rather than stripping it in one. Keep the water even through this period; a dry spell broken by heavy rain splits skins and gray mold follows into the splits. Keep the weekly sawfly check going, because later generations attack the new growth even after the fruit is gone.
- Summer shorten, then net Do the five-leaf cut first and put the net on afterwards. Trying to prune through a net is how nets get torn on gooseberry thorns.
- Pick the green crop for storing Take firm full-sized green fruit for the freezer and for preserves before ripening starts, then leave the rest to sweeten on the bush.
- Pick ripe fruit in small amounts Soft ripe berries keep three or four days at best. The bush is better storage than the fridge, so pick what you will use and leave the rest hanging.
- Take the net off after the last pick A net left on all winter fills with leaves, traps birds and shreds on the thorns. Remove it, clean it and store it until bud stripping season.
After harvest, leaf fall, and the notes that carry into next year
After the last pick, keep the bush watered through any dry spell. It is forming next year's fruit buds now and drought at this point quietly reduces the following crop. Rake up and remove fallen leaves rather than leaving them under the bush, because leaf spot and mildew both overwinter in that litter. Look over the bush for dead wood and for branches that are clearly past their best, and mark them so you know what to remove when you prune.
Then write the year down. Four numbers cover it: the date of first sawfly, the date of the thinning pick and its weight, the date of the main pick and its weight, and how many old branches you removed the previous winter. Kept for three seasons, that record answers the questions a general guide never can, namely when your own garden's sawfly appears, whether your pruning is keeping the bush renewing, and which bush in the row is quietly failing and needs attention rather than another year of hope.