Playing Gooseberry

It’s a bumper year for soft fruit at the allotment.  Our new half allotment has several gooseberry bushes and currant bushes planted under the apple trees.  They’re very difficult to net effectively, and so it’s been a year of feasting for the pigeons, too.  But the fruit cage on the original allotment is pigeon-proof, and we’ve had wonderful crops of gooseberries and raspberries, even though it’s not yet July.

We have four gooseberry bushes in the cage, two Invicta (the classic English goosegog), a Careless (also an old variety) and a red Hinnomaki, which is a sweeter so-called dessert gooseberry, which means that they can be eaten uncooked. The Careless isn’t quite ready yet, but is also loaded with fruit. The red Hinnomaki is pretty well ripe, but although the berries are beautiful, they’re not quite as plentiful as the other ones.

The picture shows the second picking from the two Invicta bushes. Just over 3 kilos, and probably as many again still on the bushes for a third picking next weekend.

All we need is for a return of the hot weather to ripen the tomatoes later in the summer, and our allotment joy will be complete!