Casseille

[nilly71]

Hi all,
Has anyone tried growing or tasting Casseille? http://www.thompson-morgan.com/fruit1/product/dww3581/1

Info from T&M

This unusual variety is the result of a cross between a blackcurrant and a gooseberry which has produced a soft fruit with an amazingly delicious flavour. The leaves of Casseille look like those of a gooseberry whilst the fruit looks like 'blackcurrant grapes' or black hairless gooseberries. Each bush is capable of producing several kilos of fruit with a very sweet taste and a hint of tartness.

These very fragrant fruits, rich in Vitamin C, make the ideal addition to a fresh fruit salad or a summer puddings. Self fertile and ready to pick from mid to end July.

They are half the price on Ideal World and in 2l containers, i'm not sure what size they are from T&M.

Neil

[allaboutliverpool]

Another name is Jostaberry.

It is easy to grow with a very vigorous habit, producing a much bigger plant than a blackcurrant, I have one trained as an espalier and it is a good 5 feet tall.

The fruit is like a large blackcurrant rather than a small gooseberry, and has an excellent flavour.

I took a dozen cuttings last autumn and will donate the plants to the allotment shop to sell to raise funds.

http://allaboutallotments.com/index.html

[jennym]

Does sound like a jostaberry, but would say that the picture shown does not look anything like my jostaberry plants, or others I've seen growing round here, but maybe plants differ widely.
On mine, the fruit tends to be in small clusters, maybe 2 or 3 fruits at each point, with lots of fruiting points along the stem, not in large clusters like a blackcurrant. The fruit also tends to be a slightly dull colour black when ripe, rather than the extreme shininess you get with blackberries.
Mine are grown as bushes, there is no fancy pruning as they tend to be quite prolific - the only cutting I do is to limit the size of the bushes which can sprawl to a large diameter, and to take out very old wood and produce new fruiting stems when needed.

[nilly71]

Thanks for the the replies, I've heard of a Jostaberry before but thought a Casseille might be different. The French Wickipedia does agree with you.

Would you both say they are worth growing?

Neil

[allaboutliverpool]

French for blackcurrant is CASSis
French for gooseberry is grosEILLE.

Hence CASSEILLE

The French language purification quango does not like foreign terms and makes it's own words up.

[Spudbash]

Because blackcurrants and gooseberries can interbreed, there are potentially lots of different crosses that could result. I've no idea whether the casseille is the same as the jostaberry, but I do know the jostaberry is a nice fruit - much nicer than the fruit from the seedling bush that my mother had - the fruits looked very like jostaberries (ie large blackcurrants), but they tasted really sour in a gooseberry-ish way. 

Of course, the riper the fruits, the sweeter they are within the limits of that variety. I often find the flavour of blackcurrants too intense, so when I'm cooking I tend to combine them with some redcurrants. I have yet to get a really good crop from my jostaberry bush, but that's probably because it's in too dry a position - it is a big, leggy thing that really needs more space than I can give it.

Has anyone else grown a casseille, I wonder?

[saddad]

I have Jostaberies and their only fault is they make huge plants if you turn your back on them... 

[nilly71]

I phone T&M and they said the bushes are approx 24" high but could not say how old they are.

Jenny has kindly said i can have some cuttings, so i'll have to be more patient.

I wonder what difference it makes on the Blackcurrents being used, some web pages say Ben are used and others say Boskoop.

Neil

[allaboutliverpool]

 

This is my Jostaberry today. It is only 2 years old and I cut about 30 branches off!
The tallest branch is about 5 feet in length.

http://www.allaboutallotments.com/YouTube.html

[Vinlander]

If you want to control a jostaberry you have to prune it like a blackcurrant ie. a stool without 'legs'.

It definitely crops in this form though I couldn't swear it crops better or worse than the bush form - it seems perfectly happy in either form.

If it's shading a path it's easier to let it become a 2m bush, if it's shading your beds then keep it to a 1.2m stool.

It's easier to net as a stool too - if you have a bird problem they will hit the jostas first because they are early and are definitely slightly less acid (not actually sweeter).

If I'm eating the fruit raw I prefer jostas too. For cooking and juicing I prefer blackcurrants.

Casseille does sound different - there are so many possible crosses.

Cheers.

[Toadspawn]

This one looks different from the Jostaberry I grew, more like a blackcurrant but with small gooseberry like leaves and possibly worth trying.

The Jostaberry lasted about two years before I got rid of it, the fruit were large but few in number hanging singly or in pairs and with a bland taste. The bush was very vigorous reaching over 5' tall and outgrew the alloted space in the two years I had it despite pruning.
I would not bother with a Jostaberry again.

[Vinlander]

The Jostaberry lasted about two years before I got rid of it, the fruit were large but few in number hanging singly or in pairs and with a bland taste.

The yield might be slightly less than a blackcurrant but it is immune to reversion and therefore gets points for reliability.

As to the flavour - you could describe it as bland but only by comparison with blackcurrants which are so sharp and intense as to be almost inedible raw (though raw blackcurrants are really nice mixed with other raw fruits that really are bland - like imported apples or asian plums).

If you think about it they are no more bland than other 'eaten-out-of-hand' fruits like red or white currants - or even a good apple for that matter.

I personally regard anything you can eat raw much more highly than stuff that needs to be cooked:

a) it provides a much bigger psychological 'lift' when you eat it - probably due to the extra vitamins and antioxidants.
 
b) there's not much fresh stuff about at the time - I don't count the tasteless fruit in the supermarket (most of it) as worth eating except in midwinter.

c) if it's cooked then sometimes it's possible to buy a good quality version (like the Italian blackcurrant juice that's so much better than ribena).

You might regard c) as an argument against home growing - I regard it as an argument for spending the time you save on growing more of the stuff that you simply can't buy.

Cheers.

[saddad]

They must vary a lot then Toadspawn... as you say the fruit are large and in pairs but whole branches are covered so I pick loads ( by cutting out the whole branch... ) 

[nilly71]

Saddad
Does yours look like the one in the link from T&M?

Neil

[saddad]

Basically yes... 

[Wilder]

I'm embarrassed to say that I ordered one of these from a TV shopping channel after rather too much vino, and had no idea what it was when it was delivered! Going to get my hubby to hide the remote if that happens again, who knows what I'll order next time o) ?

[nilly71]

I'm embarrassed to say that I ordered one of these from a TV shopping channel after rather too much vino, and had no idea what it was when it was delivered! Going to get my hubby to hide the remote if that happens again, who knows what I'll order next time o) ?

 , I try not to go on them, it's to easy to get carried away 

Neil