It puts a ton of foliage, it is ridiculously easy to propagate, and as a hybrid between a currant and a gooseberry is alluring enough to make it a super easy sale. Having said that it sucks at actually producing berries.
I bought it as a big potted bush in 2019. In 2020 it did have a running with sawfly larva that defoliated it pretty good but it snapped back the same year. This current year? My currants that are half the size are loaded. My gooseberry bush (pixel) is pumping a good crop. This big dark green bush is barely putting half a cup of berries which I’m thinking about not even bothering to net.
Is it me and my bush or is this typical? I’m feeling bad to even reproduce this stupid plant to even give it away.
I have a 4 year old jostaberry that has only really produced leaves and branches until this year. I was planning to remove it but decided to give it one more season to prove itself. It was about 7 feet across and 5 feet high so I pruned it back hard in late winter to the first bud on all the new growth as I’d noticed it only seemed to produce berries on the first bud. Not sure if that kickstarted berry production or not, but I got a phenomenal amount of berries this year which were huge and also pretty tasty. I guess I’ll let it stay.
I have a couple josta and red currants planted in a morning sun mostly location…
Not doing well at all… not growing… actually dieing back and having serious foliage issues.
I tried them both in full sun location first and they died.
They dont seem to like southern TN at all. Too hot and humid here I guess.
steveb4 recommended a Crandall clove currant … I may pull my josta and red currants (checked them yesterday and looking pretty bad)… and replace them with Crandall clove next spring.
Same here. I have 2 big bushes and 2 small ones, one small plant was separated from a bigger one and one was rooted by myself. All of them barely had any fruit, they even suffered from heat, and some berries turned orange. So yes, they have huge foloage, but are weak producers.
For me, Orus-8 is a better version of this hybrid. It produces better and tastes better. It’s got less of an upright habit than Jostaberry does, but that’s about the only negative.
I bought an orus-8. Unlike a jostaberry, it is very thorny. If it has thorns then it should taste as good as a gooseberry or it is not worth it. I have never tasted the berries so time will tell.
The native clove currants here seem to be most productive with some shade from the hottest sun…but I’ve seen some wild ones growing in hot full sun too. I planted a ring of them around a big blue spruce tree and my best tasting surviving ones are on the SE corner of that tree…and they also have some morning shade from an oak tree.
Last year I gave a jostaberry to a friend in Oregon as a gift. This is from HBUSA. The plant is now in it’s second year in their garden. It’s probably 4x the size of my Alaska plant. It flowered and it looks like they will get some fruit. What do you think of the fruit load?
My absolute favorite in the currant family is white imperial. It makes amazing jam, and jelly, and using either to make candied jalapenos is sublime. I want to try making a wine with it.
I bought 3 jostaberry from Edible Landscaping in 2019. Until this year I didn’t have any flowers. That said, they are in shaded locations and only put on significant growth last year, like tripled in size. My Jeanne gooseberry plugs from EL that I planted last year already have flowers.
@Barkslip maybe I’ll be able to compare jostaberry with gooseberry sandwiches this year
This will be my Jostaberries 3rd or 4th season. It got huge but wouldnt flower so after a decent pruning she put on 10 flowers this season…If the foliage was at least beautiful I would consider keeping it around but the lack of production and nothing special to look at makes me want to cull it. Does anybody know if Jostaberry ramps up production as they get older?
Mine is not just the shittiest of producers, but the fact that it is next to my varsity-level white imperial doesn’t make it look good. Right now every branch of that currant looks like this:
mine produce reasonably well. theyre in an out of the way location so they tend to get eaten by critters before i pick them. they took longer to produce well than most (all?) of the other Ribes, but once they hit their stride they do well. This year’s fruit set isnt on par with ‘black velvet’, my most productive gooseberry, but not bad either.
i find the flavor quite good too.
Mine is as crappy as usual. As a matter of fact it is scheduled to be relocated to a partial sun area, freeing the prime spot it currently occupies for something more productive.
Unsure if this is helpful, as most of this group likely knows it better than I, but remember that too much nitrogen tends to make things focus on leaves and not on fruit.
My Jostaberry is on the 3rd leaf with no flowers or fruit this year. My black velvet also produced no fruit. Both grew HUGE compared to other varieties. Other nearby varieties have a ton of fruit.
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