Blackcurrants,Red Currants and Gooseberries Fruit Cage

[MarkHackwell]

On my allotment I currently have Blackcurrant, Red Currants and Gooseberries all in one cage and during the summer it's an absolute nightmare to pick anything as can be seen in the pictures attached they are all too close together The question I have got is if this was your plot would you extend the fruit cage out further (Looking at the size of the allotment), sacrifice some of the fruit bushes and space them correctly (need to disguinsh which are blackcurrants and red currants and then prune them correctly), prune them soo much and hope that I can keep them
as they are or would you just leave them as is? Opinions please

[fishpond]

There doesn't appear to be any pictures.

[MarkHackwell]

There doesn't appear to be any pictures.

I have had to put them on my blog as it won't let me upload them onto here for some reason

www.marksallotment20162017.wordpress.com

[fishpond]

Hi Mark
I would extend the cage, remove all of the bushes & sort out good from bad. Burn all bad.
Prune all good, after planting at correct spacings.
At the same time put down plenty of rotted manure/compost
It is easy enough to grow new fruit bushes from cuttings so you will soon be able to fill any extra space.
You should be able to differentiate between Red and Black Current easy enough, if you cannot then post some pictures or wait for leaves to appear.

[sparrow100]

To identify the bushes, scrape the bark of the currants - blackcurrant bushes smell of blackcurrants.
Otherwise yes, I'd extend the cage and give them a better spacing. If you do it now they should recover well for next season, and you might even get a small crop this year.