To annually eat delicious and healthy berries of gooseberries , it is required to carry out correct pruning of its branches. This is simply necessary because this shrubbery grows very much, and for a good harvest and high resistance to disease, it needs a good illumination of the crown.
Pruning of gooseberry bushes can be carried out throughout the year, except for summer and September. Since there is a possibility that new sprouts will grow after it, which can freeze during frosts and destroy the whole plant. That's why gardeners prefer to do it in the spring or fall.
Spring pruning of gooseberries
After winter hibernation, a bush of gooseberry wakes one of the first, so it's necessary to plan the pruning in the early spring. It is best to do it immediately, as soon as the snow melts, and more or less warm days will be established. After the green leaves appear on the branches, nothing can be done anymore.
It is spring pruning in the preparation of the seedling for planting or shaping the crown. To determine the branches, which will not be harvested or they will be too weak, is quite difficult in this period. It will be possible to see only completely dried and damaged after the winter.
Preparation of the seedling for planting in the spring consists in pruning all its branches up to 4 kidneys. It is also recommended to get rid of poorly developed shoots. In the future, after the winter should be engaged in the formation of the bush: cut weakened, unfruitful, bare branches or shorten them to a strong growth, as well as the removal of unnecessary root shoots.
Many gardeners do not have time to prune the gooseberry bush in a timely manner (before bud budding), and in order to avoid damage to the plant and really qualitatively perform pruning, they prefer to do it in the second half of autumn.
Pruning of gooseberries in autumn
A gardener after summer is easier to determine which branches he needs to get rid of. After all, he will already know where the berries grew, in which direction the branches stretched and how much their growth was for the year. Do this after harvesting .
Annual pruning of gooseberries is aimed at cleansing and rejuvenation of the bush, which will help to give it a neat shape, as well as improve the quality and quantity of the harvest.
Before this procedure, gooseberry must be carefully inspected. It is necessary to pay attention to the blackened and withered shoots. Most often their age is 7 or more years. These branches are cut to the very root. In the same way, they come with not shoots that are fruit bearing this season. The rest should be trimmed as follows:
- lateral - on a quarter, it is necessary to make it, having stepped upwards 1 sm from a kidney, looking outside;
- with thin ends - up to the first large kidney;
- Crossing or growing in the wrong direction - so that they do not interfere with others;
- poorly growing, that is, in which the growth for the year amounted to 7 cm - to the existing strong growth.
The resulting sections (especially large diameter) are worth processing, taking for this the usual garden var. Do not worry if after cutting there will be only 4-5 branches. Gooseberries are rapidly growing, so the next year you will have again a magnificent bush of 10-14 shoots. The only thing, it will become healthier, and the number of berries on it will increase significantly.
Each year, you can spend 2 scraps: in the autumn cut out all the obsolete sprouts, and in the spring - to do shaping the crown of the bush. If you do not spend such an annual pruning gooseberries, then at first you will be very uncomfortable with it to pick berries, and then he completely ceases to bear fruit.