Harvesting and Preserving Fruit - redcurrants and gooseberries

Picking and using  - gooseberries and redcurrants

 

Well, we have now had the rain needed to wet the ground  enough to be able to till it and plant again and most of the vegetables that had been planted earlier are beginning to grow away.  So, of course, are the weeds. This year, so far, the weeds have not been too much of a problem, nor have the edges needed trimming too often but now they seem to be a bit out of control.

No worries, I won’t have to spend several hours each day carrying water – except to my polytunnel, I should have plenty of time to keep the weeds under control. But, I now have a lot of fruit to pick each time I go there. Already I have lots of tubs in the freezer of raspberries and blackcurrants. So far I have found other homes for my strawberries. I’m not a great jam eater and although I do make jams and jellies each year, I give most of it away. It seems to be quite a good year for strawberries. I have two quite large beds. The older one, which is now three years old and due to be replaced this autumn, is being particularly productive with very large fruits. I’m wondering if it is worth keeping it for another year.

The raspberries are still fruiting on last year’s canes, as soon as they have finished I will cut them out and start on the crop from the new canes. I have one row which, although the plants look lush and healthy produces very poor fruit. I inherited the canes when I took over the plot and this winter I will remove it. With modern varieties of fruit there is no need to keep underperforming stock. When I took over the plot I bought some new canes – a summer fruiting variety and an autumn fruiting variety. For the life of me I can’t remember what I bought, which is a shame as they have been excellent.

I will do the same with a row of blackcurrant bushes which, although I have pruned, fertilised and mulched them well, they continue to produce small, fiddly to pick fruits which, this year, I have just left for the birds. I notice they don’t seem to want them either – aren’t they becoming choosy?

While strawberries and raspberries will continue to fruit for some time, you only have one chance with some of the fruit. Gooseberries, redcurrants and blackcurrants really need to be picked when they are ready and there is no second or third crop to go back to if you don’t catch the first round though, to be fair blackcurrants don’t all ripen at once.

You will probably have a couple of weeks in which to ‘catch’ them but, once picked you have to be prepared to do something with them. Yesterday I picked all my redcurrants and about half of my gooseberries. The quantity of redcurrants is a little disappointing. Although I only have one bush, it is enormous and for the last few years has provided me with a bucket of the fruit. I do think that the pigeons and blackbirds have managed to find their way into my fruit cage and have had more than their share. I always leave a few small gaps just in case they do get in and can’t escape in an emergency – fox or cat. This year I’d say I have a large bowlful. I love redcurrant jelly to serve with all sorts of roast meat and while I know it is a bit unimaginative, that is what I will do again this year. If I had picked enough of them I would have frozen several tubs for winter use. It won’t be too bad though, I still have a few pots left from my bumper harvest last year.

Check on the website link on the top right-hand corner for recipes for jams and jellies – see the preserving pages.

While I may not have had an enormous crop of redcurrants, I certainly have a lot of gooseberries. While they are delicious, they are also quite fiddly to prepare. If you are going to make jam or jelly with them or, make pies or crumble they can be slightly under-ripe. For eating fresh or for gooseberry fool they are probably better really ripe.

They are quite a versatile fruit and are excellent for preserving to keep for winter use.

Gooseberries make a wonderful jelly – similar to crab-apple jelly but, a bit more flavoursome. It is also delicious served with roast meat dishes with finely chopped mint or rosemary added.

If you are going to make jelly you can skip all the tedious process of topping and tailing them (removing the stalks and the remains of the flowers at the other end). However, for jam, desserts and for freezing these must be removed.

Wash the fruit (always with gooseberries), top and tail them and pack loosely into a shallow lidded freezer container or, try dry-freezing them. Spread them out on kitchen-paper on a tray and freeze as individual fruits. When frozen, they can be packed into freezer bags. Easy!

Do keep some of them to make a gooseberry pie or a crumble. I know it is summertime but these traditional hot puddings are always delicious. Serve with vanilla ice-cream, crème fraîche or single cream – what a treat.

Summer Fruit

Well! Isn't that just like the thing! In April the weather was like June weather and all the crops were rushing ahead of themselves.

I grow lots of strawberries and have two fairly large 'patches'  - each two metres by three and a half.  It was looking good. I was preparing for a bumper crop and lots of jam making. This week - at the end of May - the weather has been described by our weather-men as being more like the end of October. I did harvest some strawberries - about a small punnet. They are not that vibrant red colour we expect but, are sweet and soft and ready to eat anyway - don't leave them if yours are like that, waiting for them to get redder. They will sit there until they rot or the birds and slugs will have them instead. However, the jam making will have to wait a while longer.

My raspberries are also beginning to ripen - today I picked a small bowl, a VERY small bowl. These are from last year's canes. As I have said in a previous Blog, I don't cut my canes back at the end of the year (neither summer nor autumn fruiting and I really don't understand why this is done!), I do take  the tops of them, for the sake of tidyness, leaving them about a metre tall, or perhaps a bit taller. Those canes are now in the process of giving me a crop, well in advance of this year's canes. The best raspberries in the UK are grown in Scotland where it is much colder than the south west of England. I don't expect that our present 'cold' snap will do any harm to my raspberry crop. But, do watch for yours ripening. Although birds are not a big problem for me with strawberries and raspberries, they will certainly take them if there is a shortage of anything else to eat.

Redcurrants and blackcurrants are now starting to colour-up. If we can see this, so will the birds and will take them all as well as your gooseberries before you have a chance to harvest them. If you really want these crops it is essential to net them. I have seen some of my fellow plot holders drape a piece of net over the tops of their currant bushes in the expectation of deterring blackbirds and/or pigeons from taking these crops. I have also seen these birds under the nets, tucking happily into the fruit until they are almost too heavy to get off the ground. I'm sure I have said this in every Blog lately but, net the bushes securely while leaving a gap for the birds to escape if attacked by a fox or a cat - that may sound like a contradiction, and it is but.........! I really do like the birds too.

Has anyone else noticed that we have more honeybees around this year? In previous years, while I saw lots of bees, they were bumble bees, solitary bees,though few honey bees. On my group of allotment fields we now have four beekeepers and interestingly a 'top-bar bee-keeper'. Do check out the information on this on the link to the allotment website. It is captivating!

Increasingly, we are having to net a wider variety of crops. This morning I had to cover my salad bed as the birds - I'm guessing pigeons - have stripped several of my young Romaine lettuces. I won't starve because of it as I grow a lot more than I need but, I don't want to lose my whole crop. Net is expensive and systems for lifting it above the crops is also expensive. Today I had to use the fine net I hate to protect my crop but, I will replace it as soon as possible as the birds catch their feet in the fine net and can die a miserable death unless we are there to rescue them.

I picked a small vase of sweet-peas from my plot today - sown in the autumn and over-wintered in my polytunnel, they are actually quite hardy plants. I planted them out in March and although they were slow to establish, they are now starting to flower. And! what an amazing fragrance they give to my house, even this little posy. If you do grow them, they need lots of feeding (best planted into well manured ground at the start),but, do keep cutting the flowers and removing the seed pods of any you might have missed or they will stop flowering.

Check out the website for recipes on jam-making, jelly making, chutneys and pickles

soft fruit - raspberries, strawberries: bush fruit - blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries

Soft and Bush Fruit

All the fruit is magnificent, so far, this spring. The plum tree is flowering and already dropping its petals – my favourite, Victoria,(suitable for eating, for desserts and for preserves). My pear tree, which I almost killed last year is covered with flowers, (this tree, planted two years ago, was also covered with bloom last year at this time but, then failed to thrive. This surprised me as the other fruit trees in the same area were growing well. A neighbour pointed out to me that, perhaps, just maybe – the mint which surrounded the pear tree, was a metre high and very lush , might possibly be taking all the nutrients and water from the tree. Of course he was right but, what a shame to have to dig out all that wonderful mint – and the bees were loving it. Still, the pear tree came first. It did recover, just, and this year I will make sure the mint doesn’t make such an extravagant takeover manoeuvre. I am not any sort of expert on tree fruit having started with them only 2 years ago.

Strawberry plants, now tidied, have already got their flowers on. I have two beds (1 is now on its third year and will be dug out this autumn. The other is two years old this year and can stay for another year. I will plant another bed from runners in the autumn). I do prefer the fruit from the first year plants – they are usually huge and juicy though there are fewer of them. With each year, it seems they get smaller but, more plentiful. I plant my new runners in beds covered with porous woven matting – approx, 2 metres by 4 metres. This keeps the weeds under control and the strawberries out of the mud. To some extent it also keep slugs away as the area around the plants stays fairly dry. The disadvantage is that in years where there is not much rain, the ground can become quite dry but, even last year when there was little rain in the strawberry season, I still had an excellent crop – far too many for me to use(and they don’t freeze well). I don’t cover with net to keep birds off. I hate to see the birds caught under the net and there really are enough for them and for me. It does annoy me slightly that the blackbirds like to take a bite out of several fruits until they find the sweetest but.....!

Blackcurrants, redcurrants and gooseberries have their flower-buds opening now. Although it is important that the bees get in to pollinate the flowers, you will need to keep an eye on these when they start to ripen. Birds will not share them with you. My experience has been that pigeons and blackbirds will strip the bushes before you have a chance to pick, so – do net them- the bushes, not the birds! Pigeons are really quite clever and can find a way into the most ‘secure’ of cages. However, much as I don’t really want to share these with the enormous flocks of greedy pigeons, neither do I want to see them being caught under netting they can’t escape from. Prey to cats and foxes – I love cats and foxes, I just don’t want to catch their lunch for them.

Many of my blackcurrant plants have ‘bigbud’. You can see these enlarged leafbuds in spring, which fail to develop into fruiting stems. When I took over my plot, a few years ago, I dutifully cut out all the branches showing ‘bigbud’ and burned them (it is caused by a mite/bug, which lives in the new shoot and prevents it from developing). A neighbour asked me what I was doing. When I explained, he laughed and said that, on the allotments, ‘bigbug’ was endemic. There was no point in trying to get rid of it. Since then, I just let the bushes ‘get on with it’. I might consider replacing a few of them with modern varieties which have bigger fruit – perhaps next winter. The smaller fruited varieties - about half of the bushes I've inherited - are a nuisance to harvest unless you are desperately keen on blackcurrants. My one redcurrant bush is a real star. I discovered it under 2 metres high, of briars when I took over the plot. It provides me with a bucketful of fruit each year. I have pruned half of it out each year. Last year, it was so overladen with fruit that a couple of large branches collapsed. However, it is a wonderful amazing bush. I am in the process of taking layered cuttings from it :o) I do  however, give it a good mulching of well rotted manure each year,as with the other bush and cane fruit.

You don’t have to spend a lot of money building professional cages. I use tree posts hammered into the ground leaving about 1 and half metres above ground (it is helpful if you can actually get inside the ‘cage’ comfortably to harvest). Cover the tops of the posts with plastic bottles to prevent the posts cutting through the netting. Pin the net down with large ‘staples’ or pegs. Leave a largish hole high up for birds to escape but not suitable for access. And, hey! I don’t get it right all the time – I’m working on this. Last year, one of my cages was a mass of pale grey feathers when I arrived. I'm assuming that a fox found the same way in as a pigeon. No cat nor other bird could have produced the feathery devastation presented.

Raspberries – now this is a plant I am curious about! And I would be really, really happy for someone to enlighten me. The accepted practise, where I live, is for the previous year’s productive raspberry canes to be cut back to the ground, leaving about 3ins(6-7cm) above ground, either in the autumn or spring. It is understood that raspberries fruit on the new season’s canes – now appearing above ground. However, in my experience, last year’s canes will also fruit this year – the flower buds are now appearing on last year’s canes. They will produce a crop May/June, before the new canes start to crop. This extends the harvesting season from May to October (depending on your varieties). My plants are not suffering from this extra crop – the canes grow to 6ft ( 2 metres) or more and are very productive. I do cut the tops off the ‘old’ canes in the autumn - more for the sake of tidiness – to about 1 metre high. It really isn't necessary to 'cage' raspberries. Although birds may take a few, bigger threats are ants and woodlice - they will destroy the fruit and the ants will sting - very nasty!

If anyone can give me their thoughts on why they are cut back before their time, I would really like to hear it. Do give your raspberry canes a good mulch of manure each autumn. If they are not productive or have very small fruit, think about replacing them. New varieties are really quite superior. Try a mixture of summer and autumn fruiting.