FLAVOURSOME FRUIT CURRANTS

you If I want to plant some soft fruit that is easy to grow and will give you plenty of flavour, how about trying currants? 

- David Patch

Spring is peak season in the garden. Soil to prepare, seeds to be sown, young plants to be tended on kitchen windowsills and in greenhouses up and down the land. Weather forecasts need to be scrutinised daily for any hint of a late frost. Oh, and the lawn will start to need mowing too.

Sometimes, even for the most dedicated of us, there just aren't enough hours in the day for all the jobs that have to be done. An opportune time then to look at fruit that's a godsend to the time-crunched gardener currants. Long-lived, easy to grow and tolerant of neglect, they should form the backbone of any soft fruit garden, with delicious bumper crops requiring minimal time and effort.

First, a little botany. Although they generally come under the same term of 'currant', there are two distinct species. The blackcurrant is Ribes nigrum, while the red, white and pink currant are all differently coloured fruit of Ribes rubrum. This might seem an unimportant distinction, but the two species are completely different and this has a large impact on how we grow and prune them.

RELATIVE NEWCOMERS

There are plenty of similarities. Both are native to Northern Europe, so are very cold hardy and easy to grow throughout the UK. They prefer a soil that doesn't dry out completely in the summer and will tolerate a little shade.

All are relative newcomers in terms of history - the first picture of a redcurrant is not until 1484, while blackcurrants are first mentioned in the late 1500s. Contrast this to fruit like the apple 'Court Pendu Plat' or pear 'Jargonelle' which are thought to have been around in Roman times; these are the new kids on the block. They were undoubtedly growing wild long before, but as agriculture came to Europe relatively late it wasn't until the 16th century that they were cultivated for their fruit on a wider scale.