Once you get a taste of juicy-sweet gooseberries from your own garden, you'll want to grow more of these berry bushes. Even a single vigorous shrub provides plenty of material for propagation. Here's how to do it.
Propagation from cuttings is that easy
As part of the annual pruning, you automatically have a number of shoots in your hand with the makings of the cuttings. A perfect specimen is 25-30 centimeters long, one year old and perfectly healthy. An offshoot is cut off 3-5 millimeters below a bud with a sharp, disinfected knife. Follow these steps:
- Cultivation pots (€16.68) fill with lean substrate, such as peat sand or standard soil
- Defoliate the lower section of the cuttings
- Halve the top half of the leaves
- plant so deep that 3-4 eyes are above the ground
- water and place in the partially shaded window seat
While you keep the substrate constantly slightly moist, rooting progresses quickly. By next fall, each cutting will have developed into a vigorous young plant ready to be planted in the bed
Easy propagation with sinkers
During the summer there is an opportunity to breed a gooseberry bush with sinkers. One-year-old shoots from the outer woody area are suitable. A suitable branch is pulled to the ground. Where it touches the ground, make a small furrow to bury the sinker here. Proceed as follows:
- defoliate the branch where it touches the ground
- Score the rind very lightly with a razor knife
- bury the shoot so that the tip sticks out of the ground
- the sinker is fixed with stones or tent pegs
- tie the tip of the shoot vertically to a small wooden stick
While the mother plant continues to supply the sinker with nutrients, a new root system will develop from the wound tissue by next spring. If you feel a clear resistance to pulling, the young plant is cut off from the mother plant and dug up. Now simply plant in the new location and care for it like an adult gooseberry.
tips and tricks
An ingenious gooseberry breed conquers balconies and terraces. The columnar gooseberry thrives in large tubs. Thanks to a growth height of 180 centimetres, you can harvest the sugar-sweet fruits comfortably while standing. There are many delicious varieties of the slender gooseberry to discover.
GTH