Connacht Gold Garden Centres

Blackcurrants are relatively easy to grow but will require regular care. Plant in good fertile soil. To improve poorer soils incorporate well rotted farmyard manure. Apply a fresh mulch of manure around the base of the plant each spring. This releases food to the plants and helps keep the soil moist during dry spells. Blackcurrants are a hungry plant.

Pruning is required every year and is ideally done between November and March. Cut out any damaged or diseased wood. Each year, prune out one quarter to one third of the number of shoots in the bush. Choose the older, darker-barked shoots to go. Prune them out as low down as possible. Annual pruning keeps the bushes to a reasonable size.

Blackcurrants carry most of their fruit on young shoots. The shoots produced in one year carry flowers and fruit the second year. Pruning aims to provide a good supply of young shoots by removing a proportion of the older shoots each year.