FRUIT - Vegetable, Fruit and Herb Growing in Small Spaces - page 84

When the berries develop and turn red they may look ripe but taste a couple before har-
vesting them. They often take a week or two to develop the sweetness despite looking ready.
The same applies to white currants, which are exactly the same as their red relatives except
for colour.
The most popular variety of redcurrant is the Jonkheer van Tets Dutch type but for pot
growing and tight spaces I would grow Stanza which is compact, heavy cropping and has a
lovely deep-coloured berry.
Whichever variety or method you use, don't forget to protect against the birds who will
strip them bare before you're out of bed in the morning.
Gooseberries
The days may be past when the gooseberry was called 'The English Fruit' by the French and
was far more popular than the tasteless sweetened water pulp they now send us called Golden
Delicious, but why not rediscover a superb flavour our great grandparents loved?
Fig. 27. Half Standard gooseberry in a pot.
Even if you have room to grow in the garden, I would suggest growing in a pot as a half-
standard. That is a straight stem running a couple of feet up to a bush, similar to decorative
bay trees.
The reason is that they have wicked thorns that will go through thick gardening gloves like
a hot knife through butter. So pruning is one of those jobs you are tempted to put off and once
they're a tangled mass on the ground the temptation is to get rid and grow something less
vicious.