Topic: Gooseberry spacing

[windy]

Hi guys.
  i will be getting a few gooseberry bushes this week from a mate.
the bushes are about knee high.

Any idea hoe far apart these need to be ?  I will be placing them in a single row.

Thanks

Windy

[vee]

Hi Windy. I have just bought and planted two gooseberries. One was Whinham's Industry which said to plant 6ft apart and the other was Careless which said to plant 4 ft apart.
The spacings look very far apart with smallish bushes but I expect they will grow to fit the space around them.
Hope this helps and you get lots of gooseberries.

[Curryandchips]

My neighbour keeps his bushes very tightly pruned and so are about 30 inches apart. If you prune them into a reasonably large wine glass shape, then 4 feet apart sounds and looks about right.

[carloso]

mine are about 2ft apart ! a bit close you might say but i seemed to get a good crop and always make sure theres enough air flow !

[Columbus]

Hi windy. Hi all  :D

It depends how much space you have. I couldn`t give mine 6 feet all round.
I try to give permanent planting space to spread their roots under paths. If theres too much top growth then things will have to be pruned to fit.

I also underplant with strawbs or salad crops.

Col

[machman5]

Hope you don't mind me adding my gooseberry question in here, I have two gooseberries which I have had for 3 years.  They are only 2 feet apart so I may move one away from t'other but every year, they get stripoed bare by 'somethin' unknown'!!

They will be fine one day with lots of leaves and little berries and then suddenly - nothing - all gone!!

They also haven't grown since I bought them, probably because of this?

Any suggestion will be great,
Donna.

[Robert_Brenchley]

If it's stripping the leaves it's probably gooseberry sawfly. Keep an eye on it, and if you see lots of little green caterpillars pick them off or dose them with something nasty.

[machman5]

Yep, stripping them totally bare, all I'm left with are skeletons.
Thanks for that Robert, I will keep an eye on them now.
Donna.

[windy]

hi guys

thanks for the advice !!

Windy

[cliff_the_gardener]

One of  the ways to ease your problems with sawfly if to clean under the bush in the autumn.  Remove any mulch and a little of the soil.  Also remove any fallen leaves.  In string top dress with compost and feed.
Seems to ease the problem of sawfly.
Clifford

[jennym]

Agree with cliff, and also - when Robert says "keep an eye on it" - I check daily for the little larvae, and if you get to them early enough, you can control it by the hand squishing or water blasting method very easily, but EARLY is the key.

[machman5]

Thanks for all the advice folks!! I might actually get to eat a gooseberry this year - well, I always was an optimist!!
All the best, Donna.
                                                     ;D

[moonbells]

My bushes are planted about a foot below path level, about 2' apart and need you to crawl on hands and knees with protective gear on in order to get close let alone prune.

Dunno what the previous lottie holder had been smoking... but they're nice bushes.

Bit mildewy last year, but they're also under my apple trees, which are usually full of tweety things in spring. I reckon if I netted the goosegogs before they were almost ready I'd possibly get sawfly, but suspect that the blue and great tits clean them up for me in normal years.

Got GTs in the box this year so hopefully they'll patrol for me again :)

moonbells

[Gillian]

I inherited some gooseberry bushes that were somewhat haphazardly planted. Some are 6 ft apart and a few are 2 foot apart (if that). They all seem to go nuts at this time of year and we always have far too many gooseberries for just the two of us. The best ones are the red gooseberries that taste sweeter and look like grapes.

[carloso]

i think i read some where that Garlic water is a pretty good at helping keeping them off,

2 or 3 crushed garlic cloves in a spray unit for 2 or 3 days then just spray the plant and disturb the soil round the bottom of the plant and spray too !


if it helps its worth a try

carl

[machman5]

Thanks Carloso,
I will keep a bottle of that on the ready, I can't hurt can it!  Might end up with slightly garlicky Goosegogs but I love garlic anyway  ;D
Donna.