Garden Journal - Harvesting Whitecurrants
We returned from a short holiday last week, and it's amazing how much had changed in the garden !
I'll do a full journal in a few days, but this one is just to highlight a single very successful plant..... our whitecurrant bush.
I've just harvested 180 grammes of whitecurrants. Lovely and juicy !
We planted the bush when we first moved into the house, and it turned out to be a strange one. Whitecurrants are supposed to be quite sharp tasting, but these have a slightly pinkish tinge to their colour and are really sweet.
This year one or two of the sprigs turned out red - if I recall correctly, whitecurrants are a variant on redcurrants, so I wonder if this is something that happens as a bush ages. I'm really not sure how long a whitecurrant plant lives for !
With all the stems taken off and washed they're ready for eating. 10 grammes of stems etc were removed. They're so sweet they don't even need any sugar or cream !
The big difference this year that's enabled us to get a decent crop is that I improved the mesh over the bush.
Two years ago, pigeons ate the whole crop. So I put a mesh over the top. It stopped the pigeons, but the blackbirds were still able to get in and took the whole of last year's crop. So this spring I reinforced the mesh to ensure even the smallest gap was protected. It seems to have worked 😀
It's hard to get a picture of the whole bush, the garden has turned into a bit of a permaculture ! But here's a photo through the mesh from the side quite low down, and as you can see there are still plenty of whitecurrants still waiting to be harvested !
All photos by me
Those look really tasty 😍
Thank you ! They were delicious 😁 Home grown always tastes better than shop-bought, and in this case they didn't even need sugar or cream, they were sweet enough already.
!BBH
That.... is not a fruit I think I have ever tasted!
You should try them ! Full of vitamin C 😁
Also if you try growing them, they seem to be pretty tolerant of most soil types and can survive a bit of neglect. They should be pruned back every year, I do it about one year in three and it seems fine. Once established they can survive without being watered too much as long as there's a little bit of moisture below ground, although they need a bit more water when the fruit is growing and can't survive totally desert conditions.
!BBH
Indeed. Interesting. I have never seen them here so I will have to see...
I've never tried whitecurrants because they are so rare here. Wow, they are so pretty.
Thank you ! I don't know where else they grow well - I think mostly North America and the Northern half of Europe. But they are delicious and well worth trying if you can find them 😀
!BBH
Wow! What a beautiful harvest. Protecting your crops from both blackbirds and pigeons paid off. Nature always rewards care and effort. looking forward to your full garden journal soon.
Thank you ! I like to think one of our cats did a good job, as well. He suddenly decided that instead of being a pampered indoor cat it was time to grow up and earn his keep. So now he lurks in the back garden under bushes and furniture and ambushes the birds when they come to eat our crops 😁
Nice one