Warning! Gooseberries may be hazardous! You all know I am more of a plant collector than anything else. It grows, I want it. I am getting away from this mentality now, but still I have many green things growing that I might not otherwise have gotten if I were not such an avid plant collector. Gooseberries are one of those things. Gooseberries you say? Are you kidding? They taste so good and are fun to grow! Yes, it is all true, but did you know they have thorns? Big thorns! And, they spread like crazy too.
I suspect the spreading may be the self seeding of the gooseberries. And they are probably self seeding since I never seem to get around to picking all the red ripe smallish gooseberries in time to enjoy them in the house. That is really my problem and not the gooseberries problem.
See the volunteer below? I had several of these last year, dozens in fact. These do not even take into account the fact that wherever the stems touch the ground, they root and form a new plant. Can you say gooseberries galore?
I had several volunteers in fact, that I dug them and shared them with many of my friends and my family. I do hope you all are enjoying them, but I must warn you-they get big and they make more and they have thorns! Why am I warning you, because I never knew this when I added the gooseberries to my garden.
A friend's mother in law gave me about 5 plants in one gallon pots several years ago. Those gooseberries sat for more than one year in those pots before I finally got around to finding a spot for them. That particular spot is in the way back garden, behind Mr. Fix-it's garage. It is a circular raised garden where I grow fruits and veggies that cannot fit into my regular vegetable garden. Gooseberries share the space with everbearing strawberries. Now how perfect can that be? The birds and the chipmunks sure do feast on all the berries! Well, that is okay for the gooseberries, since I have gooseberries galore....in the garden....just beware of those thorns.
P.S. I finally picked them this year. Probably because I am blogging now and made a public commitment that I would, not sure. But I plan to make gooseberry jelly and can you say yum!? Don't worry, there'll still be gooseberries in the garden for the chipmunks and birds as I could not get them all due to the thorns. Gooseberries taste kind of like a bland blueberry in case you were wondering.
