Grow Your Own How to grow blackcurrants

Date Published:

09/07/2009

With the vitamin-packed fruit a rare sight in shops (more than 90 percent of the country's commercial crop is used in Ribena), why not secure an affordable stash by growing your own? You can enjoy years of the delicious 'superfood' with this growing guide from Grow Your Own magazine

Preparing the plot

A sheltered spot with a reasonably fertile, moisture-retentive and well-drained soil is preferable for blackcurrants. If it has a slightly acidic pH (around 6-6.5 - testing kits are cheap and widely available) that’s all the better, but it’s not essential. Avoid placing them in frost pockets, as a late frost can damage the flowers and lead to a smaller harvest.

Although blackcurrants will tolerate partial shade, the fruits taste better when exposed to plenty of sunshine, and shaded bushes may become weak and leggy. A few weeks before planting, always clear the ground of weeds, especially perennial types such as dandelions or docks, and enrich the soil with plenty of well-rotted manure or compost.

Planting them

Most blackcurrant bushes are sold as bare-rooted plants and the ideal time for getting them in the ground is late autumn to early winter. Any time up to mid-March is also fine (as long as the ground isn't water logged or frozen) but they will have less time to settle before starting new growth. Container-grown specimens can also be purchased from garden centres or nurseries and planted throughout the year - but whenever possible, opt for the autumn, early winter or spring. Whatever the month, planting should always be avoided if the ground is very dry, frozen or waterlogged due to heavy and persistent rain. For the best results, select bushes that are certified as virus and disease-free and have at least three obvious stems.

Space the bushes 1.5m apart in the ground, and set them about 5cm deeper than they were planted in the nursery - an obvious soil mark is usually visible on each plant. This will encourage the stem bases to form roots as well and eventually give the bushes more support.

Once the new bushes have been planted in the ground, it’s absolutely essential to water and firm them in well. A 7.5cm-deep mulch of garden compost or well-rotted manure should be spread around each plant – this will help to feed the blackcurrants and keep down unwanted weed growth. At this stage, the main stems also need to be pruned to two buds from ground level (these buds should face outwards rather than inwards as that’s where you’ll want your fruit to appear). The reason for this is to channel the plants' energies into establishing the root system in the soil and encouraging the production of lots of healthy new stems (from above and below ground) in the spring and summer. These stems will produce the first crop of fruits the following season.