gooseberrys - questions from a complete newbie to anything 'gardening' :)

Hi all.

We've just last week taken over an allotment plot...which has been left abandoned for the past year or so.....so we've had our work cut out a bit with 6t weeds covering it all.  I'm very very new to gardening in general, the partner knows a bit, but its all about learning and exercise to me, but it means I'm very 'green' when it comes to some simple questions which you'll all no doubt take for granted.  On the upside, for first hour it feels like torture, but it does seem kind of relaxing after then and seeing slow progress.

Anyways......while removing these weeds, I came across a fair sized gooseberry bush.  Also a smaller red gooseberry bush near it.  Glad we noticed before pulling it out on autopilot.

Annoyingly, I just read that sometimes pigeons and such can strip these overnight......so hope that by me in effect uncovering them from around all the weeds and nettles etc hasn't left them a big open target......so will have to look at getting some netting if its not too late.

Anyways, onto the main question.  Just been googling about them, and read that normally you should start 'thinning' them around may/june time, then again a few weeks later.

Obviously that time has now passed, so I presume these are probably ripened ones (tasted sweet / tarty like cross between an underripe grape and rhubarb)

1.  When it comes to 'thinning' does that basically mean, I should pick off ALL the berries, the top half, or basically random ones around so theres basically more gaps between each leftover berry?

2.  For the end of the growing year, if I've basically taken all the berrys off, will it still come again the next year and so on, or if I take too many berrys will it cause it to fail?  Should I do anything to help it come back end of the year, chop it back a little bit or just leave it?

3.  Any way to determine what 'type' they are, as saw mention that some are more for cooking rather than snacking on etc?

Thanks, I'll be plaguing the site with lots of questions over the coming months, but will try to google first before I start annoying you all lol.

Tuck

Hi I am pretty green too, but have bought gooseberry bushes for my plot so have spent a lot of time looking up their care.
Thinning - yes just remove random fruits, my research says up to half (which you can use for cooking) - the idea being to give a longer cropping season and allow the others to get really big and juicy.
When cropping you can have all the berries, it will not cause the plant to fail. Fruit forms on old wood and around the base of last years growth.
There is lots of technical stuff about pruning but I think that the basic advice  is to keep the centre of the bush open allowing the sun (ha ha!) to get to the centre of the bush to help ripen the fruit and also to make them easier to pick and prevent mildew.
Prune in the winter. Mulch in the spring and give them a couple of handfuls of bonemealin September. This is the basics of what I have read, I am sure there will be lots more good advice.
Not sure how you can tell variety - I think perhaps the red ones are generally sweeter?

They should all be just about ready now to pick, there should just be a little give when you squeeze them.  The red ones I love to eat direct from the bush but they must be ripe to be sweet enough.  If they have been covered in weeds they may not all be ripe yet so as alotmentann says net them.

When you are trying to harvest do wear a strong pair of gloves, those thorns are sharp!

Just a quick note to say that my green ones were at least twice the size of the red ones this year.

thanks.....actually the green ones were larger than the red, so most likely a seperate plant.

I'll search for that goosegogs thread, thanks