Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: superluke2 on July 03, 2011, 18:16
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I've 4 bushes picked first bush today which has ripened before the others this year. the question is that their is so much fruit on all the bushes the branches have flattened. Is it usual to have to support the branches as I've never needed to before?
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I've never heard of having to support black currants, but there's always a first time. If your bushes are doing so well, then next year you might want to save support sticks with Y shaped ends to use a props.
We should all be so lucky to get such cropping :D
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Yes, we've had to support our blackcurrants this year, otherwise they would have been well flattened. There has been a lot of fruit which has weighed them down. Not sure whether other factors are involved like a need to prune to keep the stems shorter?
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Yes my blackcurrant needed support too, we got 11lb of fruit from one bush!!!
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I'm surprised their was a problem after they survived the heavy winter snow and the 100mph gales in may. Still never mind loads of fruit yum!!
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We've had to support ours too, mainly because we didn't prune them
properly last year (we forgot) so the branches got too long to support the berries at the ends.
They're almost ready to pick - we're planning to take each fruiting branch back to the strongest new shoot, complete with fruit, and pick the currants off them whilst we're sitting down.
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We've had to support ours too, mainly because we didn't prune them properly last year (we forgot) so the branches got too long to support the berries at the ends.
They're almost ready to pick - we're planning to take each fruiting branch back to the strongest new shoot, complete with fruit, and pick the currants off them whilst we're sitting down.
I forgot to prune also and have very flat blackcurrant bushes, amazing amount of fruit though!
I presume the usual goblet shape (open centre) is the way to go, when should I prune? Now?
Thanks,
Empty
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I think pruning consists of cutting out the oldest branches (3yrs) that have got a black colour. The new growth i thought was left alone. But their will be other more experienced than me.
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That is right superluke..... you can cut out the oldest or weak shoots now, or wait until winter :)
and yes, they are the darkest colour ones ;)
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Up until last year we'd always taken out all the branches that fruited as far back as the new growth, and also any that were in the wrong place. It seemed to work, haven't a clue how old the branches were though.
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Branches can be productive for a year or two, but it is a case of making sure the bush is not so congested you cannot actually pick the fruit :lol:
Werks fer you :)
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Up until last year we'd always taken out all the branches that fruited as far back as the new growth, and also any that were in the wrong place. It seemed to work, haven't a clue how old the branches were though.
That's exactly what I always do. Cut out all branches with fruit and sit down at home to pick them.