How to plant, grow and care for blackcurrants and redcurrants
The racket and clatter as I rootle around at the back of the cupboard for the pudding bowl can mean only one thing. No, not my attempt at a jazz percussion solo, but… drum roll, please… this summer’s crop of currants is ready!
You don’t need an overwhelming weakness for cheesecake or, for that matter, much space, to justify growing the full set of red, white and black currants, as many varieties are suited to tight spaces and even life in a pot.
Once established, their high-summer harvest arrives like clockwork, offering strings of jewel-like berries and the opportunity to make sugary summer puddings and sparkling fillings for cakes, as well as both savoury sauces and homemade energy bars. And if you haven’t time to make and bake on the hoof, currants freeze as easily as ice cubes.
What I like most, though, is that like the best summer parties, their harvest just “happens”, without much effort.
One woman who knows more about currants than most is Clare Silver, a gardener at Polesden Lacey in Surrey, where they grow “six types of strawberry, five gooseberries, four blackcurrants, four raspberries (summer and autumn), red currants, white currants, boysenberry, loganberry, blackberry, Japanese wineberry, blueberries, mulberry, jostaberry and two types of honeyberry” all for use in the café’s summer fruit crumble speciality.
“Currants are delicious and very versatile,” says Clare, “and blackcurrants are high in antioxidants and vitamins, including vitamin C. They’re also relatively easy to grow in a wide variety of garden scenarios.”
A single blackcurrant can produce a 10lb load of fruit a year. That’s a lot of jam, pie and – Clare’s favourite – blackcurrant tarts, served with cream.
The best summer currants to seek out
Reliable reds
‘Jonkheer van Tets’ is the first to berry in summer, ripening in early July; it does best when grown as a cordon. ‘Red Lake’ follows in mid-July, while dark-berried ‘Stanza’ and ‘Rovada’ ripen in August and are compact enough for pots.
Best in black
The ‘Bens’, named after Scottish mountains, are best. They are the result of the Scottish Crop Research Institute’s breeding programme, designed to create varieties suited to our climate with flowers that can survive or dodge the late frosts.
‘Ben Lomond’ is upright, so good for tight spaces, and it produces twice the yield of older varieties. It’s also late to flower so is the right choice for cold gardens.
At 3ft, ‘Ben Sarek’ is half the height, so ideal for a pot. It might be small but its branches are so laden they can bend to the ground, so give it some support if necessary. When ripe, given a shake the berries will fall from the branches.
This variety, along with the similarly bijou ‘Ben Connan’, are grown in the fruit cage at Polesden Lacey, while ‘Ben More’ is the looker, with a natural wine-glass profile and arguably has the finest crème de cassis flavour.
White delights
White currants taste like grapes and are wonderful eaten fresh.
Their high pectin content means they can be added when making any jam to help it set. If you grow just one, choose ‘Versailles Blanche’ – two years after planting at Polesden Lacey, the bushes are cropping heavily in early July and make sweet treats scoffed straight from the bush. If you have space, ‘Blanka’ is a new heavy-yielding variety that follows on from ‘Versailles Blanche’ and cooks to a delicious soft pink jelly.
All red and white varieties are available either as multi-stemmed bushes or single-stemmed cordons, available from Chris Bowers. Cordons don’t need winter main-branch thinning, just the tips and side branches.
Everything you need to know about growing currants
⇢ Where should I plant them?
Currants of all colours are tough, evidenced by the fact that you’re almost certain to find one in the long grass (along with a peony) should you take on a neglected garden.
The red and white varieties will probably still be productive too, as they crop in semi-shade, but if choosing a new site, give all three as much sun as possible. Ordinary garden soil that isn’t boggy in winter is fine, and adding compost has been key at Polesden Lacey.
“Our chalky soil isn’t challengingly thin,” says Clare, “but generous layers of mulch make sure plants have the best chance of establishing.” Mulch also suppresses weeds and retains moisture in the soil.
As with all fruit, shelter is also important, otherwise bees that pollinate the blooms and the frost-vulnerable flowers could be killed in a spring cold snap. If frost pocket is all you’ve got, keep a protective sheet of horticultural fleece handy at flowering time.
⇢ What are the best pruning tips?
Pruning currants is like riding a bike, do it once and you’ll never forget. Just remember that red and white currants fruit on old wood and blackcurrants bear best from two-year-old stems – so the more young wood, the better.
Your aim during the first few years is to create a goblet-shaped bush by pruning out any growth crowding the centre and weak/damaged stems, to leave 8-10 healthy branches.
Fruit forms inside the goblet where, thanks to the shelter, it becomes sweeter and is easy to pick.
Once established, remove two or three of the oldest branches from the framework (they’ll have peeling bark) back to the base every winter. Replacements soon grow back and, if repeated every year, you’ll keep the whole bush below five years of age in the productive sweet spot. That’s all there is to it for blackcurrants.
With white/red currants, also winter-prune the grey branch tips that developed over summer by half, and side-shoots growing lower down the branches back to 2in berry-bearing stubs.
In early summer, follow up by snipping back the new green side-shoots to two leaves from the base to keep plants compact.
⇢ My currants have grown into a weird shape, any advice?
White and red currants also lend themselves to growing as cordons – permanent single or double vertical stems that occupy little space. Clare rates this technique: “We’ve started to train our red and white currants into a double cordon along a post and wire system, which increases sunshine and air flow, helps them ripen and makes it a lot easier for picking.”
As with roses, always cut just above an outward-facing bud. Don’t leave a stub or you’ll encourage spindly growth.
⇢ Which cross-breed berries and currants do you recommend?
When I had a nursery, we couldn’t sell jostaberries for love nor money but, far from newfangled, they’ve been around for decades. Resembling a blackcurrant on steroids, they’re a complicated cross between a gooseberry and a blackcurrant.
Growing to head height and producing an abundance of marble-sized obsidian berries that taste gooseberry-ish at first, the fruit ripens to blackcurrant juiciness as they soften.
Productive and robust, the leaves are immune to American gooseberry mildew and the leaf spot and big bud mite that plague black currants.
For a variation on white currants, try ‘Gloire de Sablons’ which has fragrant, translucent pink currants with a juicy, sweet flavour. Use them to decorate cakes or make jam. (they have a high pectin content) or float in a balloon of mother’s ruin. Height and spread 4ft. Available from Ken Muir.
⇢ I don't have much space, is this a problem?
When I was renting and had a garden in containers, the 4ft tall ‘Ben Sarek’ was a winner. The plant thrived once I ditched the plastic pot (the roots cooked on hot days) for a hefty 1½ ft half-oak barrel filled with a mix of John Innes No3 and multipurpose compost.
The wooden sides kept the compost cool, and with the addition of handles (made by looping rope through holes drilled near the rim), it was easy to move about. There was also space to grow a few strawberries!
Cordon-trained plants and compact varieties of blackcurrant also work well in containers.
⇢ What is the best way to ensure a good harvest?
As a young apprentice I was taught to plant blackcurrants deep, burying the trunks a few inches lower than the old soil mark (or top of the pot) to encourage a thicket of stems.
With blackcurrants, the more stems, the bigger the harvest. After planting, trim bareroot bushes down to a couple of buds above the soil. This will look and feel drastic, but encourages strong growth from the buried stems.
Burying and cutting back isn’t necessary for red and white currants. Plant them at the same soil level as they were in their pots or the “high-tide” mark on the stem of bareroots. Most require 5ft of space each, although reduce this to 3ft for compact varieties.
If choosing now, the best range is available as bareroots for delivery in the autumn.
⇢ What are the benefits of using protective netting?
Netting placed over individual plants, or a custom-made fruit cage, will prevent birds from stealing your berries.
For pots and single plants, use “soft” bird netting in thin 3-ply plastic that drapes neatly to the ground. Pin in place, tucking any extra inside to prevent birds getting caught.
For fruit cages, 3-ply netting is good for the roof, while stiff plastic poultry/bird netting (gardening-naturally.com) keeps it tidy and sag-free.
U-shaped nails are the traditional way to pin the net to timber uprights but cable ties or twine are better – the sides can then be removed in autumn, allowing robins and tits access to pick over plants for over-wintering pests.
Fruit cage netting has ½in-plus holes that allow bees access to work their pollinating magic in spring.
