Professional nurseryman and fruit expert David Patch has a guilty secret – blackcurrants! This month he explains how to care for this exquisite summer fruit and shares his favourite varieties

BLACKCURRANTS

Existing shoots will send out side-shoots over the course of the summer, but these would not bear fruit until the following year

Notice the new bright green shoot arising from beneath soil level – these are the shoots that will crop next year

Iabsolutely love blackcurrants. Whisper it quietly, but I think they may be my favourite summer fruit, above even the strawberry, the epitome of the British summer. I’m sure this all began as a child, when the highlight of my week was trying to sneak a bottle of Ribena into the family shopping trolley when my mum wasn’t looking – back in the 1970s it had a lot more sugar in, so was notionally banned in my house.

This continued through my student days, when a shot of blackcurrant cordial was added to lager to make it more palatable to my developing taste buds. Having now grown up and developed a more sophisticated palate, I enjoy blackcurrants in the form of sorbets and coulis – although I am still partial to a cold glass of sweet cordial on a hot summer’s day. My favourite time on the nursery is in the last weeks of June and early July when the potted blackcurrant bushes are smothered with long tresses of fruit and I eat my fill while out watering, returning to the office with my fingers stained ink purple.