Sure. Send me a message in the fall.
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Will do, thank you!
Looks like I have a random gooseberry seedling in with my fig cutting. Wonder which one it’s from. I almost pulled it out earlier this month thinking it was a weed.
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As a contributor to the birds’ breeding program I’ve got a couple seedlings. Two are a year old and starting to grow mature looking branches. I found one new seedling earlier in the week with a pink stem. Hoping it turns out to be a weird hybrid. No idea how long they take to get to bearing age. Three or four years?
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This is how I ended up with random berries all around in different areas too 
i love how you put this lol
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I’m not sure if it was maybe cold, nutrient deficiency, or supposed to be pink/reddish, but looks neat. Plenty thorny anyway.
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Oh that’s cool. Definitely a keeper ! Hopefully the berries are good/interesting.
And 3 years probably sounds about right for seedlings.
I can’t remember if I put hinn. Yellow seeds in that pot and they didn’t germinate or if that was a different pot. So either hinn yellow seeds, from my mislabeled one or Glendale. Are my 3 options.
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Bane of my existence these days.
Contemplating why I even like these berries. I got all three types of sawflies active on my gooseberry bushes and it is a never ending amount of youngsters these days.
(Most already sank to the bottom as they are really bad at swimming.)
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Ugh that’s awful! Are you out west?
BT works on them over here. I have to spray my roses and ribes every year.
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Thing I don’t understand is why have they gone almost exclusively after my jostaberry plants? O_o The things aren’t even that big yet and I had to aggressively pinch the leaves just to head them off before they ate all the leaves, they’re recovering now but damn 
This year I’ve noticed that when i spray under the leaves as soon as i started seeing them, i was safe for a few months. I haven’t had to spray bt again this year and my gooseberry family of plants are finally thriving.
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B.T was a lifesaver from the invasion of forest tent catepillars over the last 3 years. the woods trees around the orchard were stripped bare. 0 damage in the orchard. theres some around this year but not many.
Hinnomaki Red is the one I keep coming back to. Good balance of flavour and it handles wet summers better than a lot of the dessert varieties. Black Velvet sounds interesting though — hadn’t come across that one before.
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I have Poorman, Jahns Prairie, Black Velvet, Amish Red and Jeanne in a row along the back of my community garden and they’ve grown so densly it is a thorny adventure to get to the berries. A lot of the fruit are on lower branches so I have to lift them to harvest. I constantly get stuck picking them, but they are worth it. I’m not sure I can claim one is a favorite, since the flavor varies so much based on how ripe they are.
I used to wait until they were really red and darker, but the animals would get most of them then. Now I pick earlier and they are delicious in jam or in tarts like these I made with some left over dough we had from making a pie with Carmine Jewel cherries. I think I used a ratio or 2:1 or even 3:1 of gooseberries to sugar which is much less sugar than the recipes I saw. I might go a little heavier on sugar next time, but they were still very well received by people I shared them with, including someone we were visiting who grew up eating gooseberries and was thrilled to get a taste from her childhood.
My black velvet had a lot of die back for some reason, so I might just go ahead and remove it. It tastes good, but it definitely has the most evil thorns.
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When you cooked those did the rubbery skin break down any?
Is Poorman worth tracking down? I’ve got Houghton, Pixwell, Black Velvet, Hino Red, Captivator, and Jeane. Of the ones that have fruited BV and Hino Red are the standouts. Pixwell is a waste of space and Houghton barely fruits. Captivator and Jeane have not frutied yet.
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Pretty much. I find the skin generally crisp on fresh ones, not rubbery, but I could see you might get that sensation on really ripe ones that are softer inside. They definitely soften up in cooking.
I don’t find Poorman as productive as some of the others, so I guess I’d say you could skip it, especially if you are looking for them for jams, pies, etc. I don’t know anything about Captivator, but Jeanne is very good, productive and easy to grow. I think that is the one I’d suggest to someone just wanting one variety, but I have one in my row (got to figure out the variety) that has fruit that is a bit fatter at the bottom (almost like a super fat rain drop) that is a larger fruit than most and very tasty.
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Yeah id agree poorman hasnt been that productive for me either. Its a bit sweeter and has bigger berries than my black velvet but it lacks in production and lays on the ground a lot more than bv which is also annoying. I like the flavor of both but they are different bv is more berryish ans tangy and pm is more fruity and sweet
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I’m wondering if the gooseberry I got from honeyBerry last fall was also mislabeled as I suspect the pink currant is not a pink. Does Jeanne grow prostate/floppy for anyone? Mine is definitely not upright. And, does it really not have thorns? Mine has thorns. It just has two berries that are starting to flush with slightest hint of color now. I’ll edit to post a picture of the plant later.
mine fruit so heavily that all the branches lay on the mulch so ive been tying them to chicken wire after i spring prune to keep them upright. makes for much easier picking. Jeanne is the most productive Ribes i grow.
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