Favorite Gooseberries and Currants

I only have Hinnomaki Red, Invicta, and Tixia planted in full shade but Invicta was my favorite for fresh eating. The sweet juxtaposed with the tart worked well together. I kept reaching for more.

@Drew51, looks like @TheDerek has some Hinno Red cuttings you were looking for!

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How old are your plants Don? And, how many years did it take for them to start fruiting? What did your other GB taste like?

We planted four GB this year, one didnā€™t make it thru the summer, but the others look like theyā€™ve made some decent progress. We have Poorman, Jeanne and Oregon Champion.

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Just curious to hear how your gooseberries did this year. How would rate their taste and production?

Same questions to @TheGrog, @zendog, and @armyofda12mnkeys

Thanks.

I really liked Black Velvet and Poorman. In fact, I planted one more of each. I was able to net those two and let them ripen. I thought they were excellent. This was my first year for both and they produced fairly well. Hinno Yellow was very good but I only got a few, same with Invicta. For some reason Invicta and Red George either dropped fruit or something got to them. The Hinno Reds produced a ridiculous amount but I think I should have thinned them. They were good, but not as sweet as the others. I actually just ordered some frozen Hinno Red gooseberries from nwwildfoods.com. I order frozen fruit from them once a year and make smoothies in the winter. Gooseberries and/or tart cherries mixed with bananas are very good in smoothies. With the cyber monday deal and free shipping it ended up being about $10/lb. Itā€™s a little pricey but the grocery store sells frozen tart cherries for $4.99 for 12 oz. which is about $6.75/lb. so once a year I splurge on some stuff that I canā€™t find in the store. I also ordered frozen red currants, apricots and morello tart cherries. Hopefully in the next few years Iā€™ll get enough to freeze on my own.

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My Poorman and Hinno Red donā€™t get a lot of direct sun and the Poorman wasnā€™t very productive, so nothing conclusive in terms of taste for Poorman. Hinno Red isnā€™t very large yet, but had a lot of fruit. I tasted a few before they were fully ripe and they were pretty good. I expect they would have been very good when ripe, but the swarm of Chipmunks that roam my yard stripped all the fruit before they got dead ripe.

My Hinno Yellow gets more sun and was probably the best tasting with larger fruit than the others as well. Theyā€™re sort of like a good green grape, but with more tang and depth. But I only had a few really ripe ones before the chipmunks found that bush as well.

On the plus side, the gooseberries seem to handle the heat here better than the black currants.

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Planted in 2014. I think there were a few berries last year. Maybe a quart or two per bush this year but I didnā€™t measure. Not to bad for full shade IMHO.

I donā€™t really recall the flavor well of the other two. I think similar but with less tart skin and maybe less flavor overall. I thought I would like sweeter and less tart but I was wrong this year.

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Thatā€™s good to know.

Their are many wild gooseberries and currants i would like to try. Also to have an edible forest garden at my cottage. I have some low wet spots, and the Swamp currant sounds like it would work Ribes lacustre.Also the wild red Squaw Currant Ribes cereum . Both like shade too. The squaw currantā€™s fruit looks a lot like Goumi.
I have native Michigan Gooseberry at the cottage, and red and pink currants. They donā€™t fruit a lot in the shade, so i just put more in. I will add these two eventually.

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Thanks for all the reports. From what Iā€™ve read from folks on here, Hinno Yellow seems to be more productive and better tasting than the Red variety.

To be truthful, Iā€™ve never had a gooseberry, but my wife likes them. They grew them here on the farm when she was young. So I got some plants for her. They sound like an interesting fruit.

Am curious if anyone has grown Captivator, itā€™s supposed to be a very good variety.

Yes, I think i want the yellow instead.

check out Oikios tree crops. they specialize in native plants . they have several native blackcurrants and gooseberry they offer. got 2 blackcurrants from them about a month ago. think theyā€™re riverveiw. their prices are decent too. planted a row of pink thimbleberry i got from them last spring.

Yes my native gooseberry comes from them. I talked to the owner before too, nice guy.
I will be doing more business with them.

sent him some cuttings of the blackberry i sent you. if it produces well in trials, he will be offering them for sale under the name prospect blackberry. :wink: be a few years before he will have enough grown to sell if he decides to.

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I have a couple Riverview black currants from Oikos, around 5 yrs old. Nice growing plant, profuse bloom, but a bit sparse on the fruitset and fruit size. Good black currant flavor, just wish they would make more! There are many layered and rooted branches if anyone wants to swap and try itā€¦

jesse, how do they compare to consort In fruiting? my consorts fruit good but from what Iā€™ve seen other cultivars fruit more heavily.

Donā€™t have any other black currants to compare with.something I need to work onā€¦

For another member Iā€™m collecting black currant cuttings today or tomorrow, if you want any? Iā€™m looking for stone fruit scion, but can send for postage too. Cuttings are fairly easy to root. Many of my plants are from rooted cuttings, most are.

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Iā€™d be interested in any rust resistant varieties, thanks Drew

been lucky so far. no rust but the consorts are supposedly immune.