Late Tommy Thompson, Toronto Metro Parks Commissioner, was famed for his gooseberry jam. Donated to gardening organizations in aid of fund raising, it introduced many to this unusual bush fruit. Shunned by supermarkets, those seeking Ribes crispa are forced to search farmers’ markets or, like Thompson, grow the shrubs themselves.
Such was not the situation a couple of centuries ago. These fruit bushes flourish in the climes of northwestern Europe. They probably arrived in Britain in medieval times being recorded as being grown in the Royal Garden at the Tower of London in 1275. Likely though cultivated forms originated in Germany, ‘gooseberry’ being a corruption of the German Krausberre. It has nothing to do with gaggles of ganders.
By the 1700s, gooseberries were all the rage in Britain. As with many other horticultural products, both edible and ornamental, the latter part of the century saw R. crispa raised for competitions and, inevitably, extensively hybridized.
Darwin grew 54 different varieties in his garden at Down House, Kent. As horticulturist Constance Casey observed in Landscape Architecture, he didn’t begin his groundbreaking study On the Origin of Species with Galapagos finches and natural selection. He started with gooseberries. The wild gooseberry – ‘goosegogs’ to Brits – is a miserable miniature green fruit, sour to the tongue. But once enthusiastic gardeners commenced selecting and hybridizing, the berries became larger and larger, sweeter and sweeter. Eventually there were both culinary and dessert varieties available, no less than 722 of them.
Alas, nowadays gooseberry gourmets will be lucky to discover a couple or so at a local garden centre. Even in the heart of gooseberry growing territory Britain, Clare Foster in her July 2009 article for House & Garden magazine listed but five. The California Rare Fruit Growers www.crfg.org/ ups this to eight varieties.
It seems a shame. Gooseberry bushes do best where the summers are humid, the winters chilly, making them ideal for northern North American gardens. They remain productive with minimal attention even during wet, cloudy summers. Occasionally mildew is a problem but otherwise the crop is relatively trouble-free – although, if folklore is correct, the occasional baby boy will be found under the bushes.
While Darwin was observing the shenanigans that gooseberries could get up to when coming under cultivation, gooseberry shows abounded across the land. There were about 700 such during his time. Now, alas, there are only about half-a-dozen. Should you despair of the London Olympics, travel north on the first Tuesday in August to the Egton Bridge Gooseberry Society in Yorkshire. Formed in 1801, the society has held its annual show ever since.
Wes Porter is a horticultural consultant and writer based in Toronto. Wes has over 40 years of experience in both temperate and tropical horticulture from three continents.
