Hiding in the goosegog patch
Take yourself back a couple hundred years or so to a village on the coast of France. On the morning walk back home after buying fish and bread, you stop at a roadside patch to pick a bowlful of groseille à maquereau (mackerel currants) to use in a sauce at dinnertime. Across the Channel, kids just like Geoffrey Chaucer picked them off the spiny stems so grownups could make grosebrerye pies or jams. These days, pockets of Great Britain still call them goosegogs. Even northward to Norway, cold-hardy stikkelsbaerene thrive and are a regular in recipes from fish sauces to jams and pies.
On our continent, we call them gooseberries and it’s not clear why. Dueling etymologists try to trace the goose part to words from Old German, Dutch or French, but the Oxford English Dictionary says don’t worry about it. Its authors claim languages make up crazy, inapplicable names for things that stick which, therefore, are equally as appropriate as a four-hundred-year-old remote cousin (although it would be fun to explore paths back to how we once spoke).
How often do Ozark folks consume gooseberry products? How many gooseberry bushes are in Carroll County? I know of one (location to remain unidentified). Berries began appearing late April to early May, and a complementary amount was harvested recently. This is a wild plant which must hold its own among other unmonitored wild things, yet it makes berries every year. Wonder how it would do if it were properly maintained?
I’m glad you asked.
You can order online your very own gooseberry bushes while sipping special tea and creaking in your back porch rocker. Pick varieties well-suited to your local climate. Some bushes have red berries which I approve of, but only if it tolerates Arkansas in summer. Can’t blame them if they don’t. We’re at the extreme southern edge of their comfort zone. The Missouri gooseberry grows wild in southern Missouri and a few northern Arkansas counties.
Take note: The gooseberry of this discussion forms a woody shrub of the genus Ribes (which includes currants) not to be mistaken for the plant called Cape gooseberry – genus Physalis – which is a groundcherry that sends up a bramble of stems with fruit resembling tomatillos.
Gooseberry plants would appreciate a 12-foot diameter space in well-drained, fairly friable soil. Also, how about at least three or four hours of direct sun through the day. Rest up for a day or two because you’ll need to dig a hole thrice the size of the rootball (not football) of your transplant. Gooseberry roots remain shallow so they dry out faster than your deep-rooted fragrant sumac. Keep moist ‘til established. The good news is goosegog bushes do not spread or get out of control. Thank you, goosegogs.
Or, you can start new plants from cuttings. Gooseberry plants want you to start more plants, so they make it easy. On a sunny mid-autumn day, snip off a vigorous hardwood stem one year old. This stem would not have had berries on it because, like blackberry canes, gooseberry stems bear fruit the second year. Clip the stem at its origin. Trim the soft wood at the end of the stem, then cut it into six-inch sections. The top cut of each section is a horizontal just above a node and the bottom cut is straight just below a node.
Plant the cuttings deep enough to give nodes a chance to sprout roots (rooting compound optional). Keep slightly moist in a sheltered location for a couple months at least although A-students recommend waiting until the following spring or even autumn. Transplant homegrown seedlings with the same attention as for store-bought or bare root plants.
Plants begin bearing fruit in year three or four. The protocol for pruning established plants is wait ‘til late winter, remove dead or damaged stems, clear out branches that clutter the center, and trim old growth by half. Soon enough you’ll need recipes for goosegog pie.