Currants - black, red and white

Growing Currants – ribes nigrum [blackcurrants] , ribes rubrum – [red and whitecurrants]

Currants – one of our most prolific and useful of the summer crops includes the most popular blackcurrant, redcurrant and whitecurrant.

When I first took over my plot I inherited several blackcurrant bushes, a redcurrant bush and a gooseberry bush. In spite of my best efforts with feeding, weeding, pruning, mulching – the blackcurrants continues to provide heavy crops of tiny fruits – a pain to harvest and unpleasant to eat. I eventually decided that there was no reason to hang on to effectively unproductive bushes. I replaced them with bushes which are now providing me with fruits which are almost grape-sized and delicious

Sowing and Growing

Currant bushes are best planted as bare-root bushes when they are dormant – between October and April though, in milder parts of the country they may not have gone into their dormant time by October and may have started to grow by April. Don’t consider planting when the ground is frozen.

Buy from an experienced provider who will supply you with certified stock.

You can also buy container-grown bushes which can, technically, be planted at any time of the year though, avoid planting when the ground is very wet or extremely dry during drought conditions or when they are cropping.

The plants are fairly tolerant of the type of soil but, prefer free draining, fertile slightly acid ground in a sunny sheltered position. Although it is tempting to plant new small bushes quite closely together to ‘pack-in’ as many as possible, remember as the bushes grow they will spread out. Allow, at least, 1 - 1½ metres between the bushes.

Prepare the ground well beforehand – clear all perennial weeds, including their roots. Dig in lots of manure/compost to the site several weeks before planting. Dig a hole at least twice that of the root ball or the bare roots when spread out. Fill in the hole with a mixture of well rotted manure and compost and the indigenous soil. Water well when planted. If planting bare root bushes, it is a good idea to [unpackage them immediately, if bought from a supplier on line], soak the roots in water for an hour before planting and ‘heel’ in well once planted.

Pot grown shrubs can, theoretically, be planted at any time though, most good suppliers won’t sell them when inappropriate. If you are planting from container grown – dig a hole at least twice that of the root ball [see above], tease out the roots from the rootball especially if the plant is ‘pot bound’ [the roots have taken up the whole of the pot space available and have twined round upon themselves forming a tight root ball].

Weed around the bushes by hand. If you use a hoe you run the risk of gashing the stem, allowing diseases into the plants. Mulch well around the plants in the autumn.

Once you have established bushes, you can increase your stock by taking hardwood cuttings from your own bushes in autumn – only take cuttings from healthy strong bushes.

Prune your bushes during the dormant season from October to March. Cut out old wood from the bushes and any diseased or weak stems – remember that blackcurrants fruit on new seasons stems but both redcurrants and whitecurrants fruit on old wood. If you remove all of the old wood on these bushes you will have no crop in the following year. Every few years it is a good idea to remove about a third of the old branches to encourage new growth. In pruning, try to encourage the bush to be compact but open, to allow the light into the bush and for ease of harvesting. Both redcurrants and whitecurrants can be grown as cordons if you are short of space.

Types and Varieties

The usual seed and plant providers will only give a limited range of fruit bushes. For blackcurrants the most popular are Ebony and Ben Connan.

For whitecurrants, you are likely to be offered Blanco and for Redcurrants Rovada seems to be the winner These are all good varieties and have been chosen for their popularity and reliability. In particular blackcurrant Ebony is an excellent dessert fruit and is sweet enough to eat straight from the bush.

However, you may be looking for something specific – disease resistance, bushes which will crop at different times of the season to extent the harvest, heavy cropping for preserves, juicy fruits for making juice.

It is better to try specialist growers for these different qualities.

Chris Bowers & Sons – www.chrisbowers.co.uk

Ken Muir – www.kenmuir.co.uk

Welsh Fruit Stocks – www.welshfruitstocks.co.uk

Pomona Fruits – www.pomonafruits.co.uk

Deacon’s Nursery – www.deaconsnurseryfruits.co.uk

Harvesting and Storing

Currants make the most wonderful, flavoursome and versatile jams and jellies which can be inspirational in both sweet and savoury contexts.

Like most fruit and vegetables, they are at their best when eaten fresh but, they can be frozen successfully – one of the few allotment products I am happy to preserve and freeze.

Nutritional Value

Excellent source of	Useful amounts	Traces
Blackcurrants A Vitamin C superfood – it contains well more than the RDA of Vit C Redcurrants and whitecurrants Vitamin C	Iron, potassium, manganese Dietary fibre Vitamin K, Dietary fibre, iron, manganese	Vitamins – Vitamin A and E, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, B6 Minerals –  magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, zinc, copper Vitamin A and E, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, B6, folate Minerals – potassium calcium, magnesium, zinc, copper
These berries are low in sodium, cholesterol and saturated fat

Pests and Diseases

Birds  are a major pest with red and white currants and unless they are well protected by netting they will clear all the fruit from the bushes before you will consider it ripe enough to harvest. They can also eat blackcurrants but, I have found that, on our allotments field, they seem to prefer other, easier and sweeter fruit. Except for a bush which is inside my fruit cage anyway, I don’t net my blackcurrant bushes.

Big Bud – on Blackcurrants can be major problem especially on allotments where it can be endemic. Caused by a mite which lives in the leaf buds, the enlarged buds fail to develop. Remove the buds and burn them. If whole branches are infected it will be necessary to remove and destroy the branches. In severe cases, remove the bushes and replace with new stock n a different place. However, if this pest in present on your plot, it will also be present on your neighbours’ bushes and will re-infect your new bushes. Having spent several years trying to eradicate this pest from my bushes I now largely ignore it.

Gooseberry Saw fly – These will attack redcurrant and whitecurrant bushes from mid springtime onwards. The small caterpillars will strip the leaves. If there are only a few, you can remove them by hand – check the underside of the leaves carefully as well as the tops. If you have lots of bushes, the foliage is dense or you have a serious infestation it might be necessary to spray with insecticide before the numbers build up too much. There are several organic pesticides on the market – try Py Solution.