Just a quick 6b Kentucky gooseberry update for those interested in growing on the steamier margins of ribes territory: Though cooler right now, we’ve had some recent days in the upper 80s/lower 90s—and these gooseberries do get 8+ hours of sun—but no signs of stress or serious disease. Deep planting, deep mulch and irrigation carry the day—so far.
Hinnomaki Red is the earliest to ripen and is in full ripening mode right now.
Black Velvet follows it by a bit and has produced some dead ripe berries, though its crop was small. (Thick, tall—and thorny!—renewal canes seem to promise better yields next year!) Red George (pictured below) is just a little behind Black Velvet this season. Not had a dead ripe Red George yet.
Jeanne, true to description, is significantly later. A few berries are getting a hint of blush, but it looks like it won’t get down to business until July.
Some notes on flavor: When still firm and underripe they are, as you’d expect, very puckery; when dead, soft ripe, they are actually enjoyable out of hand. I’ve had a couple of Hinnomaki Reds, known to have acidic skin, on which the skin was not at all sour but only mildly, pleasantly tangy Though these plants are still young—and though Black Velvet did not bear heavily in this its second year—I can already detect some differences when comparing flavors in comparably soft-ripe berries: Hinno Red is richer, grapier to my palate; while Black Velvet has a lighter, sprightlier favor. I like both! (The birds seem to prefer Black Velvet.) They’ll also make superb processing fruit—and I hope to wrangle up enough for a pie.
So far so good—and what I originally thought would just be a marginally edible novelty that was unlikely to thrive here, is turning out to be a nice fruit that, with a little extra care in cultivar selection, planting and mulching, seems to do reasonably well in one of the hottest, most humid areas of 6b. With similar moderate attention they ought to do passably well in most areas of 7 as well.
And speaking of attention, I forgot to mention that I feed monthly with whatever slow release organic I have on hand—be it Espoma Plant Tone or neem meal; I also like throw on a little kelp meal for added potassium (which ribes apparently need in above-average amounts; I corrected signs of an early-season potassium-deficiency with a 0-0-17 soluble kelp powder). I’ve also watered a few times during hot/dry spells, and used these waterings as opportunities to give the bushes fish emulsion + Pro-Tekt.
Oh, something to be on the lookout for: cane borers. This is the first one I’ve seen, on a new Amish Red gooseberry. The tip above this entry whole had begun to flag—so if you see that check for holes and frass.
I pruned the cane back to solid material and destroyed the infested bit (squishing the little invader for good measure).
On a related note, pink currants—planted just behind the gooseberries—seem to be adapting well.
