My fruit bushes are positively laden this year. This is partly because our charming tenant has (in between kindly uprooting a ‘massive weed’ that turned out to be the loganberry bush) completely ignored the garden, and so the birds haven’t even noticed three redcurrants and a blackcurrant in between all the growth.
Once I’ve fought my way through five foot high comfrey and rampant raspberries, I need to harvest my blackcurrants, which is tricky. You can’t really pick the berries individually from the stem without damaging them. Fortunately, now is the perfect time to prune your blackcurrant bushes anyway, so I tend to combine the two activities.
I use a very sharp pair of secateurs to cut the fruiting branches to a slanting point just below the lowest hanging fruit. I also remove old non-fruiting wood. All in all, you should cut back about a third of the bush.
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alberta ross
have picked my blackcurrents – should have thought of doing that pruning – will have to go back and do them – good harvest this year – big black and oh so juicy – good tip
F&F
Glad you’ve had a good harvest! I love those tangy berries so much.