I have pretty good luck with glendale, welcome, and pixwell. Welcome is especially productive. As long as they get morning sun and afternoon shade and watered when we get into a summer drought they do pretty well in the Carolina’s zone 7b, at least. Glendale is noted for being quite heat tolerant, I think it was developed in MD.
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Anyone know anything about the Golda variety planting justice has?
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I planted two Jeanne goosberry last spring.
They grew well looked happy most of the growing season… despite our nasty drought last year.
Hopefully get to try some fruit this year.
Last spring I started two crandell clove currants. Got some first season fruit… it was not great… hopefully improves this year.
TNHunter
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Jeannie fruits so heavily, it sprawls on the ground. i tie the canes of mine to a fence of chicken wire to help keep the fruit clean and ease picking.
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My Hinnomaki Red fruited for the first time last year. Maybe I didn’t let the fruits hang long enough on the bush, but their flavor didn’t impress me. They were rather sour. HR is prone to leaf diseases (probably fungal in origin) on my property, too.
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My Hinnomaki Red are best when they start to wrinkle… they need to hang for a while, but they are fantastic.
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My Glendale tasted like grapes last year when it fruited for the first time. Skin was sour but the inside was sweet. Lots of seeds tho.
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Jeanne needs to do the same. tastes like a good green grape.
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Thanks for the tip! I’ll try that this year!
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I didn’t mind the tart skins on gooseberries.
This year I plan to add gooseberries to rumtopf.
The gooseberries have spread to the point where I no longer have room for more.
They continue to produce so heavily we get some, the animals get some, and there are still a fair amount that fall.
Right now with all the snow and ice blanketing everything, the buds are fast and ready to burst.
I can no longer tell which varieties are which from the two I planted (‘Oregon Champ’)
and ‘Hinnomaki Red’).
Even with a fair amount of fruit fall, we have never seen seedlings.
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I only have the two varieties from which to compare but both grew well and filled in quickly to a mini-hedge.
We’ve had heavy production starting the 2nd season after they were planted and that continued through last season.
I was worried about heat because they cook in the summer but they have thrived. I have not pruned at all during the 4 years as we wanted to create a travel barrier. That worked well. But I do want to prune now…possibly next week. I really don’t want to because it would seem to reduce flowering and fruit production. But it might be good to open them a bit. Thoughts?
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id be worried about leaf diseases being a issue if you don’t open them up a bit. like currants when you prune you get bigger and more berries on the branches you have left so it basically balances out.
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birds dont seem to bother my gooseberries or currants except the reds and even then they dont take much.
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We’re not bothered by the animals taking berries. We get far more than we can use at this point. That was planned BTW.
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same here. once my freezers full i let friends and family come pick.
I have always raised Pixwell gooseberries. There is a big variation between plants as to amount of production. With six plants; one produced almost nothing. Two produced loads of big, beautiful, tasty berries. The remaining three fell in-between. Our biggest year, we got 40 pounds of gooseberries.
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Has anyone notice a particular variety handling full sun and hot weather better than others?
I am eager to try gooseberries but i only have full sun locations in which to plant them.
My poorman is doing great in full sun in 7b. It gets sun from probably 9 or 10am until about 6-7 pm.
I got it from HBU.
I also have a “not black velvet” that I think is possibly a josta, which does fine in full sun as long as I remember to water it. It’s between house and sidewalk and only has about a 1.5ft strip a ground. So it dries out quickly.
I think a lot of it has to do with planting them early enough to get established before they bake in the sun and humidity. And keeping them watered when it’s over 85
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If your looking to try out a bunch I suggest ordering from Lucille at https://www.whitmanfarms.com/
She has a big selection of gooseberry and currants.
I’ve ordered from her before and got great plants. They are bare root just as an fyi. She’s also very reasonable price and shipping.
You do have to call her on the phone tho to order, no online ordering.
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On a side note … Lucille no longer offers Langley Gage … Does anyone know of another source for it?
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