The gooseberry bush, Ribes uva-crispa, is a species indigenus to Europe, North Western Africa and South Western Asia. It’s a member of the Grossulariaceae family. A deciduous fruit producing plant that grows from 1 to 3 meters tall, with densely set limbs and sharp spines.


Leaves are rounded, deeply-scalloped with 3 or 5 lobes. Flowers are bell-shaped developed, singly or in pairs. Gooseberry bushes produce an edible fruit called also gooseberries that is normally hairy, grown both commercially and in the home garden. The berries are commonly green in color but there are some red variants and now and then deep purple berries occur.

Of the many hundred modern varieties a few perhaps equal in flavor some of the older plants of the fruit-garden, such as the hairy amber and old rough red. Large berries can be produced by heavy composting, especially if the most of the fruit is picked off when still small to leave room for a fewer berries to keep on growing. However, as with a lot of varieties of fruit, bigger sizes of gooseberry turned out to have lesser flavor.

Vigorous cutting back might be necessary. The old time tradition was to cut back side branches in the winter, and perhaps prune leading shoots or get rid of their tips in the summertime. The easiest process of propagating gooseberries is by cuttings instead of rising from seed; cuttings set in the autumn will take root rapidly and could commence to bear berry fruit inside a few years.

Gooseberry bushes are susceptible to magpie moth caterpillars, V-moth and Gooseberry sawfly. Careful removal of dead leaves and tilling of the ground close to the plant will also destroy most eggs and chrysalises of these insects. Potassium sulfide was known to be a good treatment for blights and other parasitical growths, such as American gooseberry mildew.

Gooseberries will do well in full sun or partial shade. They do well in sandy, loam, light clay, acid, neutral and/or alkaline soils but soil needs to be moist and drain well.
Gooseberry is a possible host for white pine blister rust which could cause grave damage to white pines; therefore, gooseberry cultivation is prohibited in some areas.

gooseberry, gooseberries, Ribes uva-crispa

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