Have you decided to start a gooseberry bush at your dacha? Then read our article on how to grow it correctly: planting, care, pruning and reproduction. Experienced gardeners will tell you that the gooseberry is one of the highest yielding crops, bearing fruit up to a maximum of 40 years. However, the first 15-year period is considered fruitful.
The culture is characterized by comparative winter hardiness, resistance to fungal diseases and moderate demands on the soil. For the successful cultivation of gooseberries in a personal plot, it is enough to know certain rules for planting, care and pest control.
Landing
It is preferable to plant gooseberries in loamy, clay, sandy and sandy loam soils. In cold, swampy and acidic environments, it simply will not survive. The shrub is picky about light, so it must be planted in sunny places. First, the selected area is dug up, all weeds are removed, especially wheatgrass - using a pitchfork, rake or manually (destroy 3-4 times).
If the soil is sandy at the bottom of the pit, then it is better to pour clay there in a 5-centimeter layer, if the soil is heavy loamy, then river gravel sand. It is advisable to periodically introduce part of organic fertilizers into the loosened soil - humus, manure, compost, urea, potassium chloride, superphosphate.
Planting holes should be made up to 50 cm wide and up to 40 cm deep.
The optimal time for planting gooseberries: late September - early October, so the plants will have time to take root before frost. If you plan to do this in the spring, then have time to plant before the buds bloom. Carefully review the planting material before this: if necessary, shorten overly long roots (more than 20 cm) and broken shoots. The distance between the rows of gooseberries should be from one and a half to two meters, between the bushes - up to one and a half meters maximum. When planting, the roots are well spread to the sides and the plant is planted obliquely. To make the ground fit better, it is advisable to trample it down. After that, each seedling is watered with water (1 bucket per plant) and mulched with humus or peat. Spring and autumn plantings are pruned so that small stumps with four growth buds remain.
Video: how to properly plant seedlings
Gooseberry bush care
As needed, gooseberries require weed removal, timely loosening of the soil, watering, feeding and pruning. It is important to water the plant during the growing season, especially in dry weather. If it is characterized by good growth, then phosphorus-potassium and organic fertilizers are applied every year, in the fall: half a bucket of organic matter per square meter, ash (100-120 g), superphosphate (45 g), potassium chloride (15 g).
Pruning
Bushes with small thickening shoots are pruned. In this case, the old main branches are replaced with new ones. Interestingly, the most valuable are the 5-7-year-old branches of the gooseberry, while the necessary branches are in the first, second and third orders. Branches older than 7 years with branches of the 4th and 5th orders differ in small fruiting.
Conclusion: you need to cut branches from 8 to 10 years old at the very base in order to form new shoots. It is not necessary to trim the tops of the plant, except for the case when small, tasteless berries appear on the apical buds. Thus, pruning is required annually. If you start the plant, then in 2-3 years it will greatly overgrow and will give low-quality small fruits, especially since when the gooseberries thicken it is difficult to cure diseases. Very often it is attacked by aphids, moths and sawflies. They use biological products, carbos and ash infusion (3 liters of water per kilogram of ash). If you notice gray spots on the shoots and leaves, this indicates powdery mildew. You can get rid of it with a solution of baking soda (5 g per liter of water), as well as ferrous sulfate.
Video about pruning and breeding gooseberries:
Growing gooseberries: reproduction
The simplest propagation method for gooseberries is horizontal layering.
Considering that the aboveground parts of the plant, when in contact with the soil, easily form roots, shallow grooves are dug near the bush in early spring. Long branches, one-year-olds of the zero order, are neatly placed in them. It is not necessary to separate them from the bush. The branches should be pinned to the ground with wooden slingshots or aluminum wire. As soon as 10-centimeter young branches grow on the laid shoots, they should be sprinkled with earth, watered and mulched. It is important to observe the condition of the cuttings during the growing season, not forgetting to water the soil in time and free it from weeds.
Gooseberries ripen, depending on the variety, in July-August. Harvesting is possible for a whole month, and up to 6-12 kg of berries can be harvested from one bush. The gooseberry variety also plays an important role. Thus, the most prolific variety is the "Date": the plant produces up to 12 kg of sweet and sour fruits (the weight of each berry is 20 g).
