Couple of questions any help appreciated please

bubbs

Hi,

Could anyone help please? I have a gooseberry bush in a tub, this is the 2nd year so i am expecting gooseberries this year...hopefully, what sort of size tub does it need to be in please?
Also when you"earth" up potatoes do i cover all the leaves? 1st time growing these too, these are in potatoe bags.
Many Thanks

balloo_2

Don't know anything about gooseberries, but earthing potatoes you earth them just under the leaves (the idea is to give the stems support) Hope this helps with half of your question.

bubbs

Thanks ballo

Kay_Peel

You get gooseberries from a three year old plant - so fingers crossed that your goosberry is going to come into its own this year. A three year old will have about 8 branches and should be coming into flower right now, so I'd be wary about transplanting it at this time of year. So don't touch it if it's about to flower.

If it hasn't got any signs of flowers, then it's time to put it into a tub. A large one. A very large one. Ideally, you should have 5 feet of ground around a gooseberry bush, but I cram them into a much smaller space and prune them to grow tall.

In the winter (Nov-March) I remove any suckers from the base and cut out all the low growing branches. I look at the new growth and find myself a nice little bud pointing towards the sky about half way along, and prune it back to that bud.

The fruit is going to emerge from the 'old' wood, so just keep shortening the branches every year by a half and take out anything near the base. Instead of a huge, messy bush, you'll get a nice manageable column that grows tall and is very productive.

Best of all, it should look really nice in a tub.

Hope that helps.

bubbs

Thankyou very much for the info, it already has much more than 8 branches and is covered in flowers so i wont be moving it!!
its in a large pot now so in the sales at the end of the season i will look for a massive pot/tub. :beer:

steady__eddie

I bought one from Aldi 2 years ago and had a fair bit of fruit on it last year, (well enough for a decent Sunday pudding).
A few days after I had picked the fruit, I was "walking in the grounds" one morning when I noticed that all the leaves had been eaten. :eek: Any ideas what may have caused this and more importantly how I can prevent it ?
We're not normally subject to plagues of locusts in the West Mids.
There are plenty of leaves on it this year, (well there was about half an hour ago the last time that I "walked the grounds")

rhiwfield

steady__eddie wrote: »

I bought one from Aldi 2 years ago and had a fair bit of fruit on it last year, (well enough for a decent Sunday pudding).
A few days after I had picked the fruit, I was "walking in the grounds" one morning when I noticed that all the leaves had been eaten. :eek: Any ideas what may have caused this and more importantly how I can prevent it ?
We're not normally subject to plagues of locusts in the West Mids.
There are plenty of leaves on it this year, (well there was about half an hour ago the last time that I "walked the grounds")

Gooseberry sawfly probably. See RHS link HERE

Primrose

I love the idea of the "fishing rod" fat piece for encouraging blue tits to come and find the gooseberry sawfly caterpillars. I test to dust my goodeberry plants with derris dust but I've got a horrible feeling that this may now have been withdrawn from the market.