Savour the flavour of gooseberries, a real garden gem

Gooseberries (Ribes uva-crispa L.) are one of those quintessentially delicious summer fruits that readily grow in Ireland but for some reason they receive much less attention than their strawberry and raspberry berry brethrens.

If you profess that you have no interest in gooseberries, it may be just that you have never tasted a fine dessert variety, packed with sweetness and a unique flavour, with the sweetest cultivars usually being red in colour.

Known as berries, gooseberries may be smooth, fuzzy or spiny, opaque, translucent, or white and are actually a member of the Ribes (currant) family. They are particularly delicious when eaten in season, which happens to be now.

They can be grown as bushes, cordons and fans and a well-maintained bush will last between 15-20 years and will produce the second summer after planting.

Gooseberry bushes are extremely hardy plants, hardier than apple trees for instance.

If a late frost occurs when the flowers have formed your gooseberry bush is unlikely to be affected.

Several thousand named cultivars of gooseberries including green, red, white, yellow, early, mid and late season varieites are available with ‘Rokula’ (Red, Early), ‘Invicta’ (Green, Mid), ‘Martlet’ (Red, Late) being tasty and reliable. In Airfield, we grow a mixture of red, yellow and green varieites including a thornless red variety called ‘Captivator’.

Though gooseberries are hardy plants and easy to grow, they also are susceptible to pests and disease with the gooseberry sawfly being one of the most devastating. This plant-specific pest presents itself as invasion of caterpillars on gooseberry bushes.

Be vigilant and inspect bushes carefully. Hand picking is probably the best advice and ensure to crush any eggs and larvae on the underside of leaves, or remove the entire leaf if heavily infested.

Look out for leaves in the centre of the bush with the characteristic ‘pin-holed’ appearance, as this indicates newly emerged larvae. If the pest has already moved to the outer areas of the bush it may be too late to do much.

The larvae should still be picked off by hand. The effect of the gooseberry sawfly larvae attack is to remove all the foliage from bushes but fruits themselves are not eaten.

However, a plant with no leaves is seriously weakened and not capable of producing mature fruit. It will also be weakened significantly when it begins growth next year.

One of the best routes to prevention is to understand the sawfly life cycle whose larvae overwinter in the top-soil around gooseberry plants.

Remove mulches in late autumn/winter and cultivate lightly round the bushes to encourage birds to clear up the cocoons in the soil. Next mulch plants heavily with cardboard and farmyard manure.

Both actions help break the lifecycle of this devastating gooseberry pest as larvae reserves in soil are reduced and heavy mulches prevent the sawfly emerging from the soil the following spring and laying eggs on the leaves which will hatch out more larvae.

Like most fruit, gooseberries are a good source of vitamins and are a significant source of fibre and like all berries they are brimming with a variety of important nutrients, including vitamins A and C, calcium, phosphorus, iron, potassium, sodium and several B vitamins.

Most gooseberries are about the size of a grape, but depending on the growing conditions and the variety, the berries may be as small as a blueberry or as large as a cherry tomato.

While ripe gooseberries are enjoyable fresh, green gooseberries are tart and are usually cooked into desserts, jams or jellies.

Gooseberries have characteristic attached stems and after harvesting, fruits need to be “topped and tailed”, a skill I learned at an early age. Bushes are thorny so care is needed in picking and may demand leather gloves and certainly slow, steady harvesting methods.

They are best picked at their fullest size before they become over-ripe and clearly before the birds get there before you. If you plan to make jam or sauce, the more bitter taste of the slightly smaller gooseberries are the ones to pick first.

For making pies and other sweet treats, only harvest those gooseberries that have reached full size. Gooseberries freeze well but otherwise they are highly perishable so best used fresh. Green gooseberries may be used in desserts as well as savoury dishes.

They can be eaten raw, lightly poached or treated in the exact same way as many other berries — jam, jellies, chutney, crumbles, curd, pies, ice-cream, smoothies, wine, added to cake mixes or whizzing them into fools, the possibilities are endless.

Top fresh berry tarts, cheesecakes and cakes with gooseberries or simply add berries to cordial or champagne glasses to suitably impress your friends and family.