Gooseberry are incredibly easy to grow at home. Gooseberry bushes are extremely versatile, and whilst they prefer sunny spells and well drained soils, they can grow in most locations. If space is an issue, you can even train them to grow against a wall.
They are a plentiful array of gooseberry plants to chose from. Gooseberries are probably most thought of as green fruits, but there are varieties which produce red or yellow fruits. On top of this, gooseberries can either be dessert varieties, where the fruits are sweet and best eaten raw, or culinary varieties, where the gooseberries are best cooked and made into jams, puddings and/or pies.
Gooseberry bushes require very little maintenance, which is great news for those with busy lives. They only require minimal pruning, to ensure that the branches do not rub against each other, which can increase the risk of disease.
When planting gooseberry plants, you should first dig over the planting area, and remove all weeds. Adding a compost mulch of approximately 2 inches, isn’t a necessity, but it is likely to improve results. Unless you plan to grow your gooseberry plant against a wall, you shouldn’t need to stake your gooseberry plants as they grown.
If you are growing gooseberries, you will need to look out for birds, as they love them! Make sure to protect fruits with a protective netting, which will stop them getting to them. If using protective netting, you should check the netting every so often to make sure birds do not get trapped within it. Otherwise, you can use a home-made solution, by using an old-CD or DVD and the glare will put off the birds.
Gooseberries can be harvested from June, when the fruits are still ripe, and they can either leave them to ripen or use for jams, sauces, pies and tarts. If you want to eat the gooseberries when they are raw, with most varieties of gooseberry plants, you should harvest the fruits in July and August.
Chris Bowers & Sons have a large supply of high quality gooseberry bushes, and have been specialists in this area of 30 years. https://www.chrisbowers.co.uk/ You can buy bare-root plants from Autumn to Spring, and plants in containers from late Spring to Autumn. They provide gooseberry plants which are possible to give you fruits in the first year. In addition to gooseberry bushes, Chris Bowers & Sons have an excellent array of fruit trees for sale.