Ribes nigrum, Ribes Rubrum & Ribes spicatum
Blackcurrant bushes are suckering and cane like, Redcurrant and Whitecurrent plants are woodier bushes, well suited to growing as single stemmed cordons against a bamboo cane or, with close attention, a fan (scroll down the page to get right to them!). Both plants make delicious, juicy fruit that ripen in abundant, satisfying bunches of small flavoursome globes. The more work you do before you eat one, the better. As long as you have them for breakfast too.
Where do I plant my currants? Despite being quite expensive to harvest on a large scale and therefore expensive in the shops, these are all easy garden plants for anyone to grow. Red & Whitecurrants have hardier flowers and are the best choice for cold or North facing sites. Both plants love a rich, slightly acidic, damp earth - the blackcurrant is more tolerant of wetter sites. Both will do alright in the shade and beautifully in full sun. Avoid planting where they will dripped on by overhanging trees etc.
Looking after your different Currants: Growing Redcurrant and Whitecurrant Bushes is talked about here - come and have a look after you've seen the plants below.
Blackcurrants are much simpler and more fun to tackle: you must be brave and remove several of the best stems each year to keep the supply of new branches coming. They fruit well on two and three year old stems, becoming much more sparse after that. A bit of hard pruning keeps the plant producing vigorous young stems to replace the old.
Pruning Blackcurrants:
- After Planting: Cut all the stems down to about 2.5 inches.
- Year One: Have a cup of tea.
- Feb-March of Year two: Apply whatever fertiliser you like in a good amount, following their instructions or your own. Wait for a month, have some tea, and apply one ounce of sulphate of ammonia for about a square metre around the base of the plants. Enjoy the summer fruits by July!
- Winter of Year Two: Go over the stems, pruning out all the small and weedy, the rubbing, the hanging, the broken and the diseased.
Every winter happily ever after: Remove about 30%ish of the bush from the oldest, most darkly coloured stems - some people remove more. Cut them right back to one of the the lowest outward facing buds. It is easiest to then cut all sideshoots off each remaining stem - they can make it bend and latch onto other stems. Also pick out all the weak & badly placed stems. Happily ever after with a blackcurrant bush can at best about 15 years and plants in their prime will do a bit more than 10, less than 15 kilos of fruit each year. You'll see and taste when they are ripe, use scissors to cut them off.
Top Tip: When harvesting, you can also do most of the pruning: just cut out some of the innermost, most heavily fruited stems and take them somewhere more comfortable to be stripped of their fruit: this will make mopping up the rest much easier. Remove other stems as described above, then just check them over again in winter to make sure they are all healthy & cut any any poorly ones.
Your plants will need action against aphids and a net is essential to keep the birds off. Delivery of Bareroot & Potted Plants Explained
All of these Currant Bushes are VAT Free and covered by our guarantee. |
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