Mulch the root area with organic matter, such as garden compost or bark chips, to conserve soil moisture. Watering is seldom required but in very dry spells water every 14 days. Container-grown gooseberries often struggle in dry conditions, so carefully monitor their watering.
In late winter, feed with a balanced granular fertiliser at 100g per sq m (31/2oz per sq yd). Avoid feeding the plants with too much nitrogen because this can encourage sappy growth, which is prone to gooseberry mildew.
Varieties:
'Invicta' AGM: White culinary, good disease resistance.
Whinham’s Industry' AGM:
Red dessert or culinary gooseberry. Tolerates heavy soil.
'Leveller' AGM:
Yellow dessert, good disease resistance.
Gardeners' Question Time recommends Rokula Gooseberry
The ones I have kept are those whose tender skins envelope an aromatic, tasty pulp. These include
- ‘Hinnomaki Yellow’, which is fairly disease resistant, with berries that taste somewhat like apricot;
- ‘Achilles’, a large berry, mostly green with a blush of red and the taste of a well-ripened dessert grape, but with large thorns and high susceptibility to mildew disease;
- ‘Captivator’, a disease-resistant and almost thornless plant, with small to medium berries that have purplish-pink skin and good flavor;
- ‘Black Satin’, a disease-resistant, spreading bush, with small to medium fruit that is dark and has sweet, grapelike flavor;
- ‘Poorman’, a large upright bush that is disease resistant, with small to medium fruit that is pear shaped, reddish, and has good sweet-tart flavor; and
- ‘Red Jacket’, a large, upright, disease-resistant bush with medium-size, red fruit that has sweet-tart flavor.
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Pests:
Gooseberry sawfly: Pale green, caterpillar-like larvae cause rapid and severe defoliation of plants, often reducing bushes to bare stems by harvest time. Damage starts in mid to late spring, but there can be three generations of the pest a year, so problems can continue through the summer.
Remedy: Inspect plants carefully from mid spring onwards, examining the undersides of leaves, especially in the centre of the bush. Remove larvae by hand. Spray severe infestations with pesticides containing pyrethrum or thiacloprid when larvae are discovered.
Birds: Birds, especially pigeons, can cause an array of problems including eating seedlings, buds, leaves, fruit and vegetables.
Remedy: Protect the plants from birds by covering them with netting or fleece. Scarecrows and bird-scaring mechanisms work for a while, but the most reliable method of protection is to cover seedlings with horticultural fleece or mesh.
Gooseberry mildew: This mildew causes a powdery grey and white fungus on leaves and stems. The mildew may also appear on fruit, causing problems with ripening.
Remedy: Cut out any infected stems or leaves you see straight away and destroy. This mildew is worse if bushes are planted close together (poor air circulation), so space bushes out when planting. You can spray infected plants with myclobutanil.
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