How do I prune gooseberries and redcurrants?

Gooseberries, redcurrants and whitecurrants are all pruned identically and all in the opposite way to blackcurrants. They carry their fruit on short spurs that build up on permanent old wood, so the framework is kept and improved year after year rather than renewed from the base. The other half of the reason for the shape is practical: an open goblet dries quickly after rain, which is the main defence against American gooseberry mildew, and it makes a viciously thorny bush possible to pick.

What you'll need

• Secateurs
• Thick gloves — gooseberries are savage
• Loppers for old wood (optional)

Step by step

1. Establish a short clear leg.Remove all growth below about 30cm from the ground, and keep it removed. Fruit on low branches sits in the mud, gets eaten by slugs and cannot be picked.
2. Select eight to ten main branches spaced around the bush.These are permanent. They should radiate outwards and upwards like the sides of a goblet, with a genuinely open middle.
3. Winter: shorten each leader by about half.Cut to an outward-facing bud so the new growth continues to spread rather than filling the centre. On a mature bush you can take less, about a third.
4. Winter: cut every sideshoot back to two buds from its base.This is the spur-building cut. Over several years the two-bud stub thickens into a productive spur system carrying the fruit.
5. Winter: remove everything crossing or growing into the centre.Plus dead wood, anything touching the ground and any weak twiggy growth. The middle stays empty.
6. Summer: shorten the new sideshoots to five leaves in late June or July.It lets light and air onto the ripening fruit, reduces mildew markedly, and makes the winter pruning easier because there is less growth to deal with.
7. Do not summer-prune the leaders.Leaders are shortened only in winter. Summer pruning applies to the sideshoots.
8. Renew old branches gradually.After about five or six years a main branch's spurs become congested and less productive. Take out one or two of the oldest each winter and train a young replacement shoot into the gap.
9. Feed and mulch after winter pruning.Sulphate of potash in late winter — gooseberries in particular are prone to potassium shortage, which shows as brown leaf margins. Then mulch over damp soil.
10. Consider a cordon for a small garden or a wall.Both gooseberries and redcurrants train well as vertical single-stem cordons at 30–40cm spacing, which makes picking easy and airflow excellent, using the same two-bud and five-leaf rules.

Tips

• Wear proper gloves and long sleeves for gooseberries. Thornless varieties exist but crop and taste less well than the good thorny ones.
• Redcurrants and whitecurrants are identical in pruning terms, and both crop happily on a north-facing wall as fans or cordons.
• Picking a gooseberry bush over twice — thinning early for cooking, then leaving the rest to ripen for dessert — gives two crops from one bush.
• Brown scorched leaf margins on gooseberries are usually potassium shortage. Sulphate of potash in late winter fixes it.
• Pruning in winter also lets you check the bush for the swollen buds and pale caterpillars that mean trouble later.

Common mistakes

• Pruning them like blackcurrants, by cutting old wood out at the base — Their fruit is on spurs on old wood. Removing the old wood removes the fruiting framework, and it takes years to rebuild.
• Leaving the centre congested — Still, damp air in the middle of the bush is what American gooseberry mildew needs, and a thorny congested bush is nearly impossible to pick.
• Leaving low branches on — The fruit sits in the soil, rots, and gets eaten. A clear leg of about 30cm solves it permanently.
• Skipping the summer prune — It is the cut that most reduces mildew, by getting light and air to the fruit at the exact time it is ripening.

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