Red,white orblack–a crashcourse incurrants

Currants are berries that belong to the ribes family.

there are three familiar edible ones that divide into two groups, with red and white currants both being very adaptable and able to grow anywhere, while blackcurrants do best on rich soil with plenty of sunshine and have a different pruning regime.

REDCURRANTS

redCurrants will grow in almost any soil and position. they can be trained as cordons, fans or grown as a bush, and for a small garden they make an ideal cover for a north wall or fence. and, of course, they are an essential component of the most delicious of all desserts — summer pudding — as well as redcurrant jelly and a divine sauce to add to ice cream or yoghurt.

the fruit hang like bunches of ruby beads on woody spurs on two or three-year-old wood so, having decided on how they are to be grown, annual pruning is geared to maintaining a framework of branches.

their biggest pest is the sawfly, which lays its eggs at the base of the plant. these then hatch and the larvae gradually work their way to the end of the branches, eating every leaf they come across. redcurrants are tough enough to survive this, but the fly can wipe out an entire season’s currants.

the answer is to grow the bushes as an open goblet. In late winter, prune any inward growing branches and reduce new growth by a third, so that you are left with the woody bowlshaped frame. this deters the fly from laying its eggs in the first place, as well as making any of the larvae easy to spot and pick off. Prune again in summer immediately after harvest, reducing all shoots by a third. Varieties: ‘ Laxton’s no 1’, ‘Junifer’, ‘raby Castle’.

WHITECURRANTS

HortICuLturaLLy, these are just albino redcurrants and should be grown in exactly the same way and position. you don’t need more than one bush, but whitecurrants (above) make a delicious jelly and their juice is a very good substitute for lemon — some say an improvement — in any dish. Varieties: ‘White Versailles’, ‘White Grape’.

BLACKCURRANTS

BLaCkCurrants (main picture) thrive in the richest soil possible, so add lots of manure or compost to the ground before planting and mulch thickly with the same every year. they also need lots of sunshine.

they produce their fruit on new wood, rather than spurs like red and whitecurrants. In the first year, they produce some fruit, even more in the second and the crop begins to fall off thereafter. so the pruning regime is to remove a third of each bush, down to the ground, every year. Cut back the oldest wood and any crossing or broken branches immediately after the last fruit is collected.

Birds love all currants and they must be netted from as soon as the berries start to ripen to the last picking — about mid- June till mid-august — or else the entire crop can be stripped overnight. a net draped over canes will do the job, and it can be removed as soon as the harvest is complete.

Varieties: ‘ Boskoop Giant’, ‘ Ben Lomond’, ‘Ben More’, ‘Ben sarek’.