Grow Your Own Magazine

Hello peeps
I was watching a gardening dvd the other night and they suggested growing redcurrant and gooseberry bushes as a standard bush. I thought this was a good idea as it frees up the ground underneath for growing other stuff such as herbs etc.
Ive inherited both bushes and they are a bit scrappy. To train theminto a standard type bush, do i just prune everything away exept one central stem? How long do you think it would take before it became a good size and produced a good amount of fruit?
Unfortunately the dvd raised mmore questions than it answered! Said it was a good idea but didnt show you how to do it!

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aka Donna

I like the sound of this idea also and with this in mind I have taken cuttings of my redcurrant and whitecurrant and am layering some gooseberries.

I would imagine it would be quite hard to start with an established bush, but with cuttings should be simple..........hopefully!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Not perfect, but perfectly acceptable(Snadge)

By the time you've got the hoe from the shed at the end of the garden, you could have hand weeded the area! (Geoff Hamiltom-ish)

Snadgers right - almost impossible to grow a standard from an established bush.

Not that difficult from a stong new cutting - just takes time. You'll need to rub out the lower side shoots and keep the leader tied in to a cane.

You can buy rooted cuttings or maidens to save a year or if you're flush you can buy ready trained standards - RV Rogers have them for about £25

Thankyou. Thought this might be the case. It will have to be a diy job with cuttings, as I cant remember what it feels like to be flush! We discovered the redcurrant when we cleared brambles on the bank, it did fruit last year. The gooseberry has never fruited, I think because I pruned it badly! Hopefully now Ive found the vine it will help me avoid so many mistakes!

Like the idea of a forest garden type thing, growing at various levels.
Thanks for the advice

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aka Donna