My blackcurrants have failed this year. I think maybe the cold spell deterred pollinators so the berries haven’t developed.
Along with tomatoes, blackcurrants are what I look forward to most in the gardening year. I love the tart, heady taste and the fragrant leaves. I also adore picking them.
Picking berries used to be a tedious chore – repetitive, unrewarding and slightly overwhelming. So small, so many. At peak summer – early July to August – I’d have redcurrant, gooseberry, and blackcurrant bushes laden with fruit. I’d find that daunting. I’d tug a handful off the plants and get bored, often leaving bunches of blackcurrants or trails of redcurrants on the bushes for the birds.
Something’s changed though (possibly just perspective) and now I long for the berries to ripen so that I can sit among the bushes hunting them down and picking them one by one. It forces me to relax and slow down. I’d happily sit for hours under a blackcurrant bush relishing…
