Gooseberries

[Jenny P]

Does anyone here grow and pick their own gooseberries? I have a bush planted about 20 years ago, that I have never picked! The reason I have never picked is that I never know when they are ready, and forget about them.

SO this year I am determined to pick, which I did today, the ones turning red were easy to tell. But if they are still green how do I know if they are ready or not? Can I pick and use them green?

I also learned that there are thorns!!!

I don't have many, maybe a pound, and a pound left on the bush. My plan is to freeze them and decide what to do with them later.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Seems like eating one would be a very easy way to know if they're ready, besides the color change.

I'm not familiar with gooseberries but underripe fruits usually taste overly bitter or acidic, and generally less flavorful.

 

[Mallerstang]

We had gooseberries in the garden when I was a kid, and my mum made pies and jam out of them.

The green ones get soft when they are ripe, even if the colour doesn't change. They might even split open. Also the flavour goes from sour-and-raw to tart-and-sweet.

I have a jostaberry bush now, which is a gooseberry-blackcurrant cross, and I find the ripe berries taste good and are softer and easy to harvest. The upripe ones are rock solid.

 

[dmtaylor]

I have gooseberries. Mine turn red. But even if they didn't I would pick them when they are soft and somewhat sweet. When unripe they are very hard and crunchy. They should ideally have a consistency similar to a grape but with somewhat tougher skin than most grapes.

 

[Quaker]

I have some red and green gooseberries. At perfect ripeness they easily come free from the branches. They are a little tougher to pluck off when they aren’t quite ripe yet. And as mentioned earlier, they feel a bit softer when ripe; they give a bit like a firm water balloon.

 

[nik2]

Just looked at my gooseberry bushes to find not a single gooseberry left.

So it seems they're ripe when some critter's eaten all of them

I hadn't considered gooseberry wine though - sounds interesting!