Jostaberry

Hello all you fruit experts.

I hae inherited a garden this year with various fruit bushes including gooseberries and redcurrants which are doing very well.

I also have what I first thought was a large blackcurrant bush. It is going to have a massive crop by the look of things. The berries are still green but I recently started to think they were getting too big to be blackcuurrants and now they have the characterstic veiny sort of markings of gooseberries. After studying pictures in 'The Fruit Expert' book I now think I may have a Jostaberry which I had never before heard of and is a cross between a gooseberry and a blackcurrant., the fruit being about twice the size ofa normal blackcurrant.

Do any of you have a Jostaberry - any ideas what I can do with all the berries as there are going to be a lot?

I'd never even heard of them but I searched google for Jostaberry recipe and plenty ideas came up for you there; wines, jams, etc

Click here

Thanks everyone. Jam sounds like the way to go to deal with most of them! I'm looking forward to a new fruit experience in a few weeks time.

From your desciption Splodger your bushes sound like my Jostaberry, if that is what I have.

It seems surprising this fruit isn't more well know and more widely grown, by all accounts it crops heavily, is highly disease resistant, and is a tasty, useful and nuritious fruit.