Blackcurrants
Overview
Blackcurrants - Ribes nigrum
Season - July -August - September.
Blackcurrants have been the workhorse of the soft fruit garden for many years. Red and white currants may have gone in and out of fashion but the blackcurrant has always survived. Probably it’s because of the fact that it is packed with health giving vitamin C and can be eaten uncooked or made into jams and preserves.
How to grow
Planting season– October to March except when the ground is frozen or waterlogged.
Planting depth– Blackcurrants are grown as stooled bushes. To achieve this they are planted about 15cms/6ins deeper in the soil than they were grown in the nursery to encourage the production of underground shoots. These are not to be regarded as suckers.
Distance between plants– 1.8metres/6ft Blackcurrants can make quite big bushes up to 1.8metres/6ft tall so be prepared to give them plenty of room.
Distance between rows – At least 1.8metres/6ft
Cultivation– Blackcurrants make plenty of strong growth in a season. Top dress around the plants using a general fertiliser in March, and at the same time apply a 50cm/2ins deep mulch between the plants.
Pruning
Established bushes
Blackcurrants carry their fruit on the previous summer’s growth. Pruning couldn’t be simpler, remove the old fruited branches. Ideally pruning should be carried out immediately after harvesting or more practically, September.
By the middle of summer the blackcurrant bush will be a mass of fresh young shoots surrounding the older fruiting branches.
The older wood that has produced the blackcurrants will have turned dark brown during the summer and needs to be cut right out at soil level just above a cluster of buds. This will leave a jungle of pale green, one year old shoots that need organising. Cut out all of the weak, crossing and badly placed shoots first. The next stage of the exercise is to select 5 to 7 strong evenly spaced upright shoots that will carry next year’s crop. Everything else must be pruned out down to soil level. A halo or crown of shoots should be the end result.
Newly planted bushes
The newly planted bushes must be pruned down to soil level at pruning time. This will allow the buds that are below the soil to grow and produce the shoots that will carry the first crop in the second summer after planting. The shoots that grow in the first summer must notbe pruned it is vital to understand that you will not get a crop in the first year but the shoots that have been produced are the ones that will carry the first crop. At the end of the second summer after planting prune the bushes as described for established blackcurrants.
How to Harvest
Modern varieties of blackcurrant such as the ‘Ben Sarek’, ‘Ben Hope’, ‘Ben Lomond’ and ‘Ben Connan’ can be harvested by cutting the strigs (bunches of fruit) as they turn black. Alternatively you could prune and harvest at the same time by cutting some of the whole branches out with berries on them and picking them at leisure. This solves two problems in one by pruning the old wood out and making it easier to pick the berries.
Older types of blackcurrant varieties ripen at different times, with the currants at the top of the strig ripening first. The fruit should therefore be picked individually.
Blackcurrants need to be eaten within a few days of harvesting; they can also be frozen, cooked, or made into cordials, jam or jelly.