With Spring just around the corner, now is the time to check all your fruit bushes for damaged, crowded branches. A good pruning will ensure a healthy plant and an abundant fruit harvest.

The RHS recommend:

Prune blackcurrants when dormant – from late autumn to late winter. Fruit forms on young wood, so when pruning aim to remove older wood, leaving the young shoots. Up to and including the fourth year after planting, remove weak, wispy shoots, retaining a basic structure of 6 to 10 healthy shoots.

Raspberries:

In late winter (February) prune all the canes to ground level before growth commences. The plants will fruit on new growth. Pruning summer-fruiting raspberries these produce fruit on one year old canes. In autumn cut all canes down to soil level that bore fruit during the summer.

Raspberries are beautiful with a leaf of freshly picked mint, a match made in heaven and a proper taste explosion.

Gooseberries:

In winter, remove dead wood and low-lying shoots. Then spur prune all side shoots by cutting them back to one to three buds from the base. Shorten branch tips by one quarter, cutting to a suitable outward facing bud. Repeat step 2 each year as maintenance pruning.