Ribes rubrum
Redcurrant, also known as red currant, gadellier, castille, or March grape: its translucent clusters resemble tiny bunches of grapes, which explains its regional names. An unassuming, remarkably easy-to-grow shrub, it produces tart clusters from the beginning of summer, perfect for fruit paste and jelly.
Characteristics:
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Translucent clusters: bright red, tart berries gathered in long, highly decorative clusters.
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Very hardy: it tolerates temperatures down to -20 °C and thrives in cool regions.
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Low maintenance: light annual pruning is enough to keep it productive.
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Adaptable: ornamental garden, orchard, vegetable garden, or trained against a wall — including a north-facing wall.
Sowing advice:
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Exposure: an open, partially shaded position. This is important: redcurrants dislike hot, full sun, which scorches their leaves and cooks their berries. They do remarkably well trained against a north-facing wall.
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Soil: cool, deep, rich in humus, and well drained, preferably neutral to slightly acidic. As its roots are shallow, it is just as sensitive to drying out as it is to standing water — mulching is highly beneficial.
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Method: cold stratification for 6 to 12 weeks is necessary to break dormancy. Then sow in spring in pots, covering lightly. Germination is slow: be patient. See how to sow your seeds.
Planting advice:
- Transplant with 1.50 metres between plants. It can be grown as a bush, on a standard, or trained in cordons against a wall, depending on the space available.
- Growing it in a large container is possible but significantly reduces production.
- Mulch as soon as it is planted: its shallow roots quickly suffer from drought.
Care advice:
- Keep the soil cool in summer. Adding compost around the base each autumn is enough to maintain it.
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Pruning: redcurrants fruit mainly on two- to three-year-old wood. At the end of winter, remove the oldest, blackened branches and keep the young shoots — this is the opposite of blackcurrants, which are cut back more severely.
- Thin out the centre of the bush to limit powdery mildew.
Harvesting advice:
- Harvest the whole cluster by pinching it at the base, never berry by berry: the fruit gets crushed, and the cluster keeps much better intact.
- Wait until all the berries on a cluster are fully coloured. Netting is often necessary, as birds spot them before you do.
Beneficial associations:
- Its tolerance of partial shade makes it well suited to the lower layer beneath fruit trees, with nettles kept at a distance and yarrow to attract beneficial insects. See the basics of permaculture.
Benefits for biodiversity:
- Its discreet, early flowering, beginning in April, provides a food source for bees at a time when there is still little for them to forage.
- Its berries feed blackbirds, warblers, and field mice at the end of spring.
Uses:
- In jelly — its naturally high pectin content allows it to set without any additions —, in jam, tarts, syrup, or coulis. Eaten raw, its berries are distinctly tart.
- They freeze very well when stripped from the stems and spread out on a tray.
Harvesting your own seeds:
Crush very ripe berries in a little water, rinse to separate the seeds from the pulp, then dry them flat before winter stratification. Redcurrants are also very easy to propagate from hardwood cuttings in winter. See how to store your seeds.
Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for all living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Auvergne Volcanoes, we choose open-pollinated, non-hybrid varieties, tested for their germination rate, carefully sorted and packaged, with no chemical treatment. Our belief: to give gardeners back the ability to resow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.
The fruit shrub that accepts a north-facing wall and still produces a crop.
