Prune gooseberries and currants

Many gardeners dread fruit pruning for fear it is complicated but there are a couple of simple rules that make things easier. Arm yourself with sharp bypass secateurs, and some sturdy gloves if you’re pruning gooseberries, to protect your hands from their spines.

The best fruit is produced on branches that are 2-3 years old, so the first step is always to take out any wood that’s older than this. If you do this every year, in theory your gooseberry or red or white currant should never have any wood that’s more than four years old. Blackcurrants are pruned in a similar way, but they fruit on wood that’s 1-2 years old, so any branches that are older than this can be removed.

White and red currants fruit on 2-3 year old wood. Photo: Shutterstock

If you follow this regime, you should be removing about one third of the total number of the bush’s branches each year. Always cut them right down to the base, which will encourage the bush to produce strong new fruiting stems from the bottom of the plant.

The second rule is to cut out any dead, diseased, damaged or dying wood – usually easy to spot even though there are no leaves by the bark’s colour – and the third rule is to take out any stems that are growing inwards, towards the bush’s centre. The idea is to create a goblet-shaped bush with a fairly open centre. If you want, you can then shorten the branches you’ve left behind and their side shoots by a couple of buds, which will encourage the bush to produce better quality, larger fruit in slightly smaller quantities.

This gooseberry bush needs to be thinned: its oldest branches taken out at the base and inward growing shoots cut out, with the aim of leaving an open-centred, goblet-shaped bush. Photo: Shutterstock

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