Superb redcurrants

This year’s redcurrant harvest has been huge.

What a terrific harvest we have had of redcurrants this year. I’ve been watching them ripening, lighting up in the lovely afternoon sun that tumbles giddily down the hill into our garden.

And now they are ready to harvest.

And look how many there are!

Now here comes the annoying bit. Redcurrants aren’t easy to pick. They just aren’t. Some people buy silly combs to make it ‘easier’, but guess what, folks, they don’t work and are just gimmicks to entice you to part with more of your cash. The only way to do it is to pull the stalks with the little beach ball-like berries on off the branch, and then sit in front of the TV and pull the berries from the stalks, before using them as you wish.

This year we have two big bags of berries in the freezer already, and that’s only from two of our three red currant bushes. Some will go on cereal in the mornings, others will go in jellies, others in salads and others into preserves. They never last for as long as you imagine when you laboriously harvest them, but my goodness are they worth it.

One tip: get the fruit cages over these bushes when the flowers are turning into currants. It’s still at a time of year when you’re not frantic in the garden and it means no birds can get at the immature fruit, which is somehow even more heart breaking than seeing birds make off with ripe currants.

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3 Responses

Matt @ Garden59 July 17, 2015

It’s been a bumper year for redcurrants - we had our first summer pudding of the season last night. Do you grow any redcurrants as cordons or fans? I’ve got one growing as a fan against the wall of the house and it seems to be doing pretty well.

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- fennelandfern July 26, 2015
  
  We haven’t tried as cordons yet, but I’m quite tempted as we have some seedlings in the patch that I might try to raise.
  
  Reply
Sheri July 31, 2015

I’m from Washington State and we too had an incredible berry year. I purchased 3 Jostaberries, a cross between a gooseberry and black current early this spring. Though they will not be planted in their permanent spot until fall I did re-pot them right after I got them home. They put on a lot of growth & berries. I wasn’t sure how to deal with them, all that tough stem and little hat caps so I just washed and put them in the cooker pot and juiced them down. Then I mashed them all to release their juice and put them through a jelly bag. From there they went into (3) 2 gallon glass jugs which I topped off with Vodka for winter cordial.

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