Old Blackcurrant Bushes Now with photos

I have a policy to never take out anything until you've seen what it does  .

There's a story that my father used to tell about a couple who bought a house near to them who, immediately on moving in spent time and money planting daffodils. They were very proud of themselves, the trouble was that the garden they had inherited had the best show of daffs in the village before they started.

Anyhow, seriously, I would give your blackcurrants a chance. You need to prune it now (you're probably a week or two late but it won't matter). Cut out the old dark wood (3 years old and older) and (if they're strong bushes) some of the grey 2 year-old wood to let the air circulate through the bush.

Mulch and feed it to help.

Id second headgardener.10-15 years is supposedly the productive lifespan of a blackcurrant bush.By the pictures a lot of the growth looks to be quite young the light coloured branches.I noticed that theres a dark thick branch in the middle.Id cut that as far down as you can manage.I give mine a dressing of sulphate of potash this time of year to encourage flowering=more fruit.Blackcurrants fruit on growth that grew last year so keep that in mind when pruning.I try to prune branches that are crossing and ones that are at an angle of around 45 degrees to the ground .The reason being is that when the branches that are at an angle are laden with fruit they will droop down and the fruit will touch the ground and spoil or get splashed with soil when it rains.Try to make all cuts as low down as possible to keep all branches as young as possible.You'll also want it to be well fed so you get enough fresh growth for next years crop so a good dollop of manure after the sulphate of potash will feed it and act as a mulch to keep the weeds down.Good luck

Had quite a few frost the last week so I think I'll be leaving the spuds for a few weeks

With you there, Surbie!

We discovered two blackened, gnarled old bushes buried under a huge bramble on our new Patch, and as said here, left them a year to see if they still worked. Result? We had a huge crop of enormous berries, which must have been nearly half an inch across, so they had just a light pruning of all the damaged branches from their previous life, and we'll hopefully get the same sort of crop this year!

Don't expect blackcurrants to do as well this year as they did last, I remember seeing something that said they need 1000 hours of temperatures below 7C to fruit really well. We got that last year but certainly not this year.