Pruning a gooseberry bush

Hi all

My gooseberry bush is a tangled mess. Despite this it promised to give me loads of berries this year, with densely laden outer branches. I've just had a better look, and it seems that it is only the outer branches that have fruit on them. Nothing at all going on inside the tangled mess.

So my question is this: When can I prune it? I've just googled about and read conflicting reports. Some say to only do it in winter, some say it must be autumn, some say early summer.

Also, I'd like to attempt to propagate it from cuttings, which I'd hoped to do with the prunings.

Any tips?

 

In my limited experience Autumn/Winter pruning works well. Take out any dead wood and cut backbranches over 3 years olddown to ground level. Trim the current year's growth by half and generally tidy other branches to stop them becoming long and droopy. Keep the centre open.
As for propagation, I've found that when pruning if you stick a cutting about a foot long in a flower pot, about 3ins buried in any old soil, it will be a strong little plant next year!
Alternatively you can bury the end of a trailing branch and it will root. The trouble with this method is that branches lying on the ground can rot and spread disease.

 

My only comment would be to make sure you sterilize your secateurs before pruning a goosegog. Wish I had.

 

Why, what happened?

 

It caught some sort of die-back disease and went from a large productive plant last year to 95% dead this spring. The only cause I can think of is that last autumn I did some pruning to "maintain an open structure" like they say, using the same secateurs that I use all round the garden, and to be honest, they had become a bit gummed up with mixed plant juices.

Quote from RHS gooseberry page: Eutypa dieback Caused by Eutypa lata, this fungus causes branches to die back and occasionally kills the whole plant.

I suppose I'll never be sure, but seeing the whole plant go from healthy to dead so quickly makes me think it was my unhygienic pruning that did it. To be fair, the wife said as much at the time, and I brushed it aside (sigh).

Anyway, I'm going to be more careful about cleaning secateurs between uses in future.

 

Cleaning secateurs......thats something I only do when I am putting an edge back on them..Thats another tip picked up an I thank you for sharing it.
I shall clean them today....honest.
My two yound goosegog bushes are fruiting nicely but do look a little "twisted" at the moment.
robert