I love the early summer because the weather is lovely, the whole season stretches out before you, and most importantly… it’s the beginning of gooseberry season!
In my area, the end of June means it’s time to start putting these flavorful fruits into pretty much every meal.
That means chopped gooseberries and nuts on my morning yogurt, pickled gooseberries on my afternoon sandwich, and grilled gooseberries on my evening fish.
If you’re growing your own bushes or you’re hoping to pluck some at a local U-pick farm, you’re probably wondering when and how to get the fruits away from those spiky bushes and into your mouth.
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This article will provide all the important details, plus a few tips on how to use up your harvest.
Gooseberries are a tasty summer fruit that can be enjoyed both fresh and in jams, pies, and other recipes But knowing exactly when to harvest gooseberries can be tricky. Use this guide to learn how to identify ripe gooseberries so you’ll know the perfect time to start picking
What are Gooseberries?
Gooseberries are small, round fruits that grow on bushy plants in the genus Ribes. They are native to Europe, northwest Africa, and western Asia. The two main types of gooseberries are European gooseberries (Ribes grossularia) and American gooseberries (Ribes hirtellum).
Gooseberries can vary in color. Common colors include green red, yellow, white and pink. When ripe, gooseberries range in size from 1⁄4 inch to 1⁄2 inch in diameter. They have a sweet yet tart flavor that makes them perfect for desserts, jams, and savory dishes.
When is Gooseberry Season?
Gooseberry season runs from early summer through early fall. In most regions ripe gooseberries become available starting around late June or early July. The harvest season typically lasts 4-6 weeks.
Some varieties of gooseberries ripen earlier than others. Early-ripening cultivars may be ready to harvest 1-2 weeks before late-ripening ones. The timing also depends on your growing region and local climate conditions. Expect a shorter season in cooler climates.
Gooseberries don’t all ripen at the same time on a bush. Fruit will steadily become ready for picking over an extended period. Make frequent harvests to get the berries at their peak.
How to Tell if Gooseberries are Ripe
Ripe gooseberries should meet these criteria:
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Full sized: Gooseberries are ripe when they reach their expected mature size. For most varieties, this is 1⁄4 inch to 1⁄2 inch in diameter. Measure a sampling to determine the average size.
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Plump: Ripe fruits will feel plump and filled with juice when gently squeezed. Hard, solid fruits need more time.
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Soft: The berry should yield slightly when squeezed but still feel firm. Very soft or mushy berries are overripe.
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Flower stems dry: Look for the dried, brown remains of the flowers on the bottom end. Green flower parts mean the fruit is still developing.
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Translucent skin: As gooseberries ripen, the skin turns translucent. Green varieties won’t show this as much.
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Ripe color: The mature color depends on the variety. Red types turn reddish-purple. Yellow/green varieties show an orangey tint.
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Easily separates: A ripe gooseberry should detach easily from the stem when picked.
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Sweet taste: Sample a few berries to test for sweetness. Ripe fruits will taste sweeter than tart, unripe ones.
The trick is to harvest when gooseberries first reach the peak stage of ripeness. Left longer, they’ll become overripe and lose quality. Check your patch every few days once fruits start maturing.
When to Pick Gooseberries for Jam
If you want to use gooseberries to make jam, pick them a bit before full ripeness. Slightly underripe fruits contain more natural pectin. This helps jams and jellies set up properly.
Choose gooseberries that:
- Have reached full size
- Are still firm and solid
- Have a tart, sour taste
- Lack full ripe color
A mix of ripe and underripe berries also works well for jam. The combination provides the right balance of sweetness, tartness, and pectin.
How to Harvest Gooseberries
When picking gooseberries, wear thick gardening gloves and long sleeves. Gooseberry branches have sharp thorns that can scratch up your arms.
Use one of these easy methods:
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Pick by hand: Carefully pluck off each ripe berry individually. Take care not to crush the tender fruits.
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Use scissors: Snip the stems of ripe berries using gardening scissors.
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Shake bush: Gently shake branches to dislodge ripe berries onto a tarp below. Avoid including unripe fruits.
Only pick ripe, undamaged berries. Leave any bruised, overripe, or moldy fruits behind. Place harvested berries gently into a shallow container.
Refrigerate gooseberries quickly after picking to maximize freshness. They’ll keep in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Enjoy your harvest fresh or preserved into tasty treats like jam, pie, or crumble.
When to Harvest Gooseberry Plants
In order to determine when to begin picking gooseberries, it’s a good idea to know how you are going to utilize them. Why is that? Well, the great news is that you can harvest gooseberries that are not fully ripe. No, they don’t continue to ripen but if you are going to use them for preserves, they actually work better when they are unripe, firm, and slightly bitter. If you want to pick the ripe berries, color, size, and firmness will give you an idea about when to begin harvesting gooseberries. Some types of gooseberries turn red, white, yellow, green, or pink when it’s gooseberry harvest time, but the best way to tell if they are ripe is to squeeze them gently; they should have a little give. As to size, American gooseberries get to about ½ inch (1 cm.) long and their European counterparts to about an inch (2.5 cm.) in length. Gooseberries don’t ripen all at once. You’ll be harvesting gooseberries over a nice, long, four to six weeks beginning in early July. Plenty of time to harvest very ripe berries suited to eating out of hand and plenty of underripe berries to preserve.
When to Harvest Gooseberries
Once you get your gooseberry plants in the ground, it takes them about three years to reach the point where you can get a full harvest off of a plant.
In the first year, you should rub or pick off any flowers to encourage the plant to focus on developing a healthy root system. That means no fruits for at least a year (insert sad face emoji here).
In the second and possibly third year, you’ll get a smaller harvest, but you’ll still be able to enjoy the tangy sweet fruits of your labor.
After that, you’re off to the races!
Unless you’ve selected an early-maturing variety, most gooseberries start producing in late spring or early summer, around the end of June or the beginning of July. Of course, this depends on where you live.
They’ll keep producing – again, depending on the variety and location – as late as the beginning of September.
So, when can you be sure it’s time to dig in?
Since the berries don’t fall off the bush until they’ve become over-ripe, and because they don’t all ripen all at the same time, you can’t wait for berries to start falling to know when it’s time to break out the baskets.
To complicate things further, if you want something with a tart flavor, you can pluck immature fruits starting several weeks before they ripen. Basically, gooseberry harvest time is anytime the fruits are on the bush!
Okay, not really, but you do have a lot of leeway to work with. Assuming you want to harvest your fruit at peak ripeness, when the berries are fully sweet, here’s what you need to know:
First, look into the mature size of the fruits that your particular cultivar produces. Watch for the fruits to reach this size.
Then, look at the little flower clinging to the bottom end of the berry. If it still has color and isn’t totally dried up, the berries probably aren’t ready to pick.
However, once that little flower stem has turned brown and completely dry, that’s a good indicator that the fruit is ready to be plucked.
You will know some berries are ready because they reach their ripe color. But you can’t always count on gooseberry fruit color to be a reliable indicator, since different cultivars have different berry colors.
It’s not enough to simply be aware that you have a yellow berry plant or a red berry plant, because these colors encompass a large range of different shades. Yellow cultivars can have ripe fruits that range from pale, almost white, to deep orangey-yellow. And red berries range from pale pink to almost black.
Dried flower end of the gooseberry fruit. Photo by Kristine Lofgren.
Green varieties are even trickier, since they don’t change color much as they mature.
Whatever the color, specific signs of ripeness depend so much on the particulars of your chosen cultivar.
If you know what your berries should look like when they’re ripe, keep an eye out for the fruits to turn their mature shade.
You can also compare berries to others on the bush. Here you can see mature fruits growing next to immature fruits:
A more reliable indicator is texture. The fruits should feel plump and juicy, not hard and solid.
The skins should also turn translucent, if you’ve picked a variety that does this. If the cultivar that you’ve planted has hairs on the fruit, those should be present as well.
To test the fruits, gently squeeze one with your finger. If it feels soft and as if it’s filled with liquid, it’s ready.
Photo by Kristine Lofgren.
I’ve found the most reliable thing to do is to harvest and taste a few berries at random points – from different spots on the plant and on different days – and decide what you like best in terms of flavor and texture.
That way, you can decide when the berries are ready according to your own tastes.
Once you’ve found the perfect level of ripeness, note the time of year, the color, and the size of the fruits in your gardening journal. This will give you a better idea of when they should be ready next year.
If you are hoping to turn your berries into jam, pick them before they reach the fully ripe stage. They’ll have higher levels of pectin at this point.
Look for berries that are full size, that haven’t quite attained their mature color. They should be somewhat hard, and should taste tart.
Photo by Kristine Lofgren.
It’s also worth noting that you can pick half of the berries when they are under ripe and let the rest stay on the plant until they’ve matured.
This will give you fewer berries at one time, but they will be larger and sweeter.
Some people compete to grow the largest fruit, with the winning gooseberry in 2019 weighing in at an astonishing 2.25 ounces, a world record! For reference, the gooseberries I’m nibbling on while writing this average 0.2 ounces each – and they’re pretty large.
First things first: let’s talk about thorns.
Most gooseberry plants have nasty thorns that make harvesting a literal pain.
Photo by Kristine Lofgren.
When you’re ready to pluck your fruits, suit up with gloves and something to cover your arms that you aren’t afraid to tear.
Unlike some fruits, gooseberries can stick around on the bush for a week or two even after they’ve ripened, and not all of the fruit matures at the same time.
They also grow individually along the branches, rather than in clusters.
All this means your best bet is to simply pluck the ripe fruits individually by hand, being careful to avoid the thorns if you can.
Gently tug each berry loose or snip it with a pair of scissors. Keep in mind that gooseberries are tender and plump, so they can burst in your hands. Use caution and don’t get too tough with them as you pull.
If you don’t like the idea of plucking them one by one, put a tarp under the bush. Then, shake the plant gently to dislodge the berries.
You might get a few under-ripe berries this way, but you can always use them to top fish, or you can pickle them. You might also lose a few berries if they burst when they hit the ground.
Gooseberries ripen over a period of several weeks, so you can head out to the garden daily and snatch a few ripe berries to eat, or come out every few days for a larger harvest.
Berries that fall on the ground on their own are overripe. Let the birds have them, or pick them up and toss them in the compost bin.
Depending on the variety you’ve selected, you can get up to 10 pounds of berries off of one bush.
How to Tell When Your Gooseberries are Ripe?
FAQ
Why is gooseberry illegal in some states?
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White Pine Blister Rust:The disease, caused by the fungus Cronartium ribicola, requires both white pine and Ribes plants (like gooseberries and currants) to complete its lifecycle.
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Susceptibility:Black currants are the most susceptible, followed by red currants, and gooseberries are generally less susceptible.
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Past Restrictions:Prior to 1966, a federal ban prohibited the cultivation of Ribes due to concerns about white pine blister rust.
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State-Level Restrictions:While the federal ban was lifted, some states, particularly those with significant white pine forests, have retained restrictions on certain Ribes species, especially black currants.
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Examples:Some states, like Maine, have restrictions on all Ribes species, while others, like New York, allow commercial growers and home gardeners to cultivate red currants, gooseberries, and resistant cultivars of black currants, says Cornell University.
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Resistant Varieties:Black currant varieties that are resistant to white pine blister rust can be grown in areas where other currants and gooseberries are permitted, according to Cornell University.
What color should gooseberries be when you pick them?
Some types of gooseberries turn red, white, yellow, green, or pink when it’s gooseberry harvest time, but the best way to tell if they are ripe is to squeeze them gently; they should have a little give. As to size, American gooseberries get to about ½ inch (1 cm.)