Redcurrants are such a versatile crop. They are tangy and sweet, and shine as well in summer puddings as they do with roast lamb. They are also easy to grow, and will settle in happily to partially shady areas of the garden. We used to have an enormous bush growing underneath an apple tree, and it cropped spectacularly well, even in the dappled light.
Currants fruit on year-old wood, so we won’t be harvesting any from these young plants this summer. In the meantime, we have planted them up in fertile homemade compost, with plenty of broken pottery and stones at the base of the pots to aid drainage. These plants crave potassium, so a nice long drink of comfrey tea helped them settle in, and next year, as the flower buds begin to appear, we’ll be placing comfrey mulches on the soil surface to encourage fruit production. If any of the leaf margins turn brown, the plants are hungry. Feed with more comfrey tea, or a seaweed foliar feed.
If you are growing currants along the shadier wall or fence of your plot, you can train them as a fan by removing older branches, and any growth which crisscrosses over other branches in winter or early spring.
