Red Currant Red Lake
Notify MeStrings of translucent scarlet berries hanging under the leaves, each one tart enough to make your eyes water raw and perfect once cooked. 'Red Lake' is the standard red currant in New Zealand gardens, a reliable mid-season cropper carrying long, well-filled trusses that are easy to pick. The bush is deciduous, with lobed green leaves and inconspicuous green flowers in spring.
One bush produces enough for jelly, cordial, sauce for game, and a summer pudding, which is more than most fruiting plants of this size manage. Grow it in a berry bed, along a fence, or trained flat as a cordon against a wall where space is tight. It is self-fertile, so a single plant will crop without a partner.
Plant in full sun to light shade in free-draining soil enriched with compost. Red currants need real winter chilling, so they crop best through the South Island and the lower North Island, though warmer districts with a cool winter can still succeed. Allow 1.5 m between bushes. Mulch each spring and keep the shallow roots undisturbed.
Grows around 1 to 2 m tall and wide, depending on how hard it is pruned.
Trimming: Red currants fruit on spurs on wood two years and older, which is the opposite of blackcurrants. Build a permanent open framework, then each winter remove about a third of the oldest branches at the base and shorten side shoots to two or three buds.
Fertilising: Apply a balanced fertiliser in early spring and mulch generously with compost. Potash matters more than nitrogen for fruiting, so avoid high-nitrogen feeds that produce leaf at the expense of trusses.
Watering: Water steadily from flowering until harvest, particularly while the berries are swelling. Uneven watering causes small fruit and splitting. The roots are shallow, so mulch rather than hoe around the bush.
Pest Control: Birds will strip a bush the day before you plan to pick, so net it early. Aphids curl and redden the leaves in spring. Currant gall mite causes swollen rounded buds that fail to open, and affected shoots should be cut out.
Disease Management: Powdery mildew coats leaves and shoot tips in humid weather, and an open pruned framework is the best prevention. Coral spot shows as pink-orange pustules on dead wood, so cut damaged branches back to clean growth.
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