Grow Gooseberry.

The easiest berries you can grow Gooseberry bushes thrive best when theyre neglected says MONTY DON making them the perfect plant for the time-poor gardener | Daily Mail Online

- There are over 150 cultivars to choose from (and over 3,000 have been recorded over the past 300 years) but
I have limited myself to ‘Invicta’, ‘Whitesmith’, ‘Greenfinch’ and the sumptuous red-fruited ‘Whinham’s Industry’.
For something a bit different try growing Gooseberry Langley Gage with a small transparent berry of exceptional sweetness.

- Once established, and as long as they have decent drainage, gooseberries thrive best on benign neglect.

- So I moved my ailing bushes to a new site, exposed to the wind that howls across my fields.
I added nothing to the soil they were planted in and began the practice of spreading the wood ash from our open fire around the base of the plants in spring.
This provides extra potash which does not aid the growth of green foliage (which is what the sawfly larvae love) but flowers and fruit (which are what I love).
I pruned my gooseberries carefully in March to establish an open goblet shape.
It has to be noted that the soft new growth that pruning stimulates is particularly attractive to rampant fungae and hungry caterpillars.
An old, unpruned gooseberry bush rarely gets troubled by sawfly or mould, presumably because it is too tough a mouthful.
But pests are so much easier to pick from an open, well-pruned bush.

- Sawfly hate wind.
A cordon shape – a single stem pruned back hard to spurs just a few inches long each spring – offers no shelter for them.
Wind has also helped keep at bay the grey mould (American mildew, Sphaerotheca mors-uvae) which used to cover the leaves by mid-summer.

- Now that the last of this season’s fruit has been picked it is a good time to prune the bushes lightly again, removing the floppiest of the new growth and ensuring that they remain open for the wind that does them so much good.

- Gooseberries grow well from hardwood cuttings taken in autumn from straight new growth, so leave the strongest new shoots unpruned.
Also pull up any suckers growing from the base of the plant; don’t cut them as it just encourages more regrowth next spring.

Some useful around web.

These are a few of my favourite things | Out of my shed

- It’s great to see varied growing techniques in different gardens and I found these Hinnomaki Red Gooseberries, trained as cordons, very inspiring.
A lot easier to harvest than from a bush, these upright fruits would be wonderful to grow in tight urban spaces and I’ve already ordered a few to experiment with in my own garden.
- Cordons are a single main stem, tied onto parallel wires stretched between posts, and trained vertically. This is a good method of cultivation for the small plot.
Plant single, vertical cordons 30cm (12in) apart.
Stretch two wires – one at 50cm (20in) and one at 1.3m (41⁄2ft) – between two posts and tie vertical canes to the wire where each gooseberry is going to be planted.
In late winter, feed with a thin mulch of well rotted manure. Avoid feeding the plants with too much nitrogen because this can encourage sappy growth, which is prone to gooseberry mildew.
Pruning:
On planting, prune back the tip by a quarter, cutting to just above a bud. Remove all sideshoots that are 15cm (6in) from the ground or below, plus any suckers. Cut back all young side shoots to one or two buds.
Year two onwards: cordons
1. From early June to mid-July, cut all young side shoots to five leaves and tie the growing tip to the cane as it extends.
2. In late autumn or winter, after leaf fall, prune back the same side shoots to one or two buds. Cut back the tip by one-third.
3. Once the cordon reaches 1.7m (5½ft) in height (the top of the supports), cut back the tip to five leaves from last year’s growth in the summer, and then back to one-three buds from last year’s growth in winter.
An average yield of 3-5 kg can be expected from a bush; 1-1.5 kg from a cordon.
How to Grow Gooseberry Bushes
Ribes uva-crispa 'Hinnomaki Red' | Right Plants 4 Me


- Another edible success was growing potatoes on top of grass. Following my visit to Charles Dowding’s ‘no dig’ farm, I experimented with a few Charlotte potatoes in April, planting directly on top of fresh grass and covering with about 6 inches of recycled municipal compost.

- The no prune (well almost) method of tree training! | Out of my shed

"Gooseberry 'Whinham's Industry'

Monty's favourite fruit | Plant features | Plants | BBC Gardeners' World: "Gooseberry 'Whinham's Industry'
Grows well in shade and on heavy soil. It forms red berries that are ready to pick in late-July."

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