Blackcurrants - 3 Ways to Harvest & Store Your Crop | Fast Producing Perennial Shrub

In this video we share the 3 methods we use to harvest our Blackcurrants as the seasons changes, for best care and efficiency, together with the ways we use and store our crop so that we can enjoy the delicious goodness of Blackcurrants later in the year.
One of the BEST, FAST Producing Perennial Edibles!
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To see our Blackcurrant Cordial Recipe Video - Click the link here:
• Homemade Blackcurrant ...
Enjoy & Thanks for Watching
✌️🌿 Peace and Plants
#Blackcurrants #Foodforest #Perennialedibles

[@TheDragonsGarden]

i planted a hedge of blackcurrants and we got a few berries the very next year, but THIS year they are laden down! so having some advice on harvesting was helpful!

[@freedomforestlife]

A blackcurrant hedge is an awesome idea - good on you 💚 Glad the video was helpful 🙏 Enjoy your harvest ✌️💚

[@elhachimivariety384]

Watching from Morocco 🇲🇦 useful video 👍

[@freedomforestlife]

Awesome! Great to have you with us 💚✌️🌿

[@mabuying3298]

Awesome colour!!

[@freedomforestlife]

💜💜💜

[@NnekaOchonogor]

Spread thickly on sourdough bread - is the best… I’m hungry now 😀

[@freedomforestlife]

Ha Ha, So good! 😁 xxx

[@jetterbenne2578]

I have about 10 bushes, I freeze the berries in deep freezer and make syrup and compote throughout the year. The syrup I mix with sparkling water makes for daily refreshing drinks. It's my favorite drink. Loaded with vitamin C, antioxidants and also contain citric acid, good to prevent kidney stones. The compote I mix with plain yoghurt and it is so incredibly delicious. I also made once a fruit wine mixed with raspberries and black currant. Very delicious wine but because I don't drink much still have about 10 bottles from 2 years ago.

[@freedomforestlife]

Hi, thanks for sharing those lovely recipe ideas and tips 💜 Blackcurrents are such a productive and nutritious crops - I make lots of cordial and jam and freeze them down also for use in smoothies etc throughout the year ... your compote sounds delcious too - might have to look for a recipe this season... like you, we don't really drink much either, I love the idea of making fruit wines, but I still have a rack of cider from 2 year ago too! 🤣 Thanks for watching and commenting ✌️🌿

[@gawain8000]

Great video (:

[@katewood7580]

Thanks so much for your inspirational video. We have just got an allotment plot which has a big blackcurrant bush, (southern England), which apparently is a good fruit producer. It's really useful to learn how you have harvest and prune the bushes. Are you ever able to eat the raw berries or are they too sour?

[@freedomforestlife]

Hi kate, congrats on getting you allotment - quite a rarity particularly here in the south I believe! Blackcurrants are a fairly sour fruit, I still enjoy them raw though, often throw them into my breakfast bowl with a mixture of whatever is in season and they are great in smoothies too either fresh or frozen. I always makes up some cordial too (recipe in this older vid here - kzbin.info/www/bejne/amiXm4GVrZhkqNU ) it does add a lot of sugar though, but delicious. Freezing is the easiest way to preserve your harvest for later use if you can't keep up. So glad your enjoying our channel - enjoy experiementing 💜✌️🌿

[@westmountrealty]

It’s july 30 from quebec canada. Just harvested fhe cut branch method as berries were ripe. 1. You left small branches on ground- ( cut and drop). Is that for propagattion? And can one propagate in summer and not just fall or spring as some others suggest? 2. Why don’t u make tea from leaves? I have not tried but supposed to be good? Thanks!

[@mountainfigsperennialfruits]

Great bushes and demonstration. What varieties are you growing?

[@freedomforestlife]

HI, We are growing Ben Lomand, Titiana, Ben Nevis, Ben Conan and a couple of others 😊 Glad you enjoyed watching 🙏✌️🌿

[@POLSKAdoBOJU]

Great tips. Any advice on how to support my bush. The weight of the of the fruit is causing the branches to bend.

[@freedomforestlife]

Glad you enjoyed our vid 🙏 I heard recently - and actually experienced it this year, that is a good thing to have the branches bending over some, as this helps stop the birds helping them self to your harvest, so unless the branches are breaking perhaps dong worry, let it be and see how it works this year - thanks for watching 💚✌️🌿

[@POLSKAdoBOJU]

@@freedomforestlife my problem is that it covers up other smaller plants that I have planted 2-3 feet away which inhibits their growth.

[@nox5555]

Its very important to let the cuttings dry out a bit before doing anything else with them in the garden or your garden will be full of bushes very fast

[@necipbattal1126]

I planted red currant in sunny place of garden. It died. Blackcurrant and Red curant sun requirement Shade or Full sun ?

[@liliagriffindemorales7670]

We just bought a house with an overflowing black currant bush, but the berries are not at all sweet. Is there a trick to knowing which ones are actually ripe? In your video you mentioned soft skin. All of ours are still pretty hard and the fruit is incredibly bitter. Do I just wait?

[@freedomforestlife]

Hello, where about are you, if UK it is likely that it’s still a little early. Leave them a bit longer I would say for sure 💚✌️🌿

[@homegrownharvest211]

Blackcurrants are very bitter fruits generally

[@samantha9313]

How do you keep caterpillars away from black currant bush

[@freedomforestlife]

Hi Samantha, can't say we've ever had a problem with caterpillars before - where are you located? Maybe different pests to us ... there are constantly black birds in our food forest sharing all the fruit though, so prehaps they clear all the caterpillar too 💚 Thanks for watching and good luck with you harvest ✌️🌿

[@LittleSisterH]

I've lots of buddleia plants around my blackcurrant and I never had a problem with that and the garden gets full of butterflies.

[@virginiedesjardins7108]

How do you keep birds and squirrels from eating them

[@freedomforestlife]

Hi, depends of the year for what they seen to go for, they are not normally that interested in the Black Currants, but if I leave red current on too long, they take those. Sometimes the squirrels come in .. usually after the strawberry have been on a while - we try to keep any bigger trees back from outside the food forest, so they dont have too much of a direct route to jump in. Thanks for watching 💚✌️🌿

[@forest4167]

I’ve never had black currants before as the bushes are illegal in the U.S. But I stumbled across a MASSIVE patch of them for the first time on my university campus. They were labeled, so I know that they are black currants. But the berries have this sort of…. Sharp herbal smell that I was not expecting. Is this normal with black currants or could these berries have been sprayed with some sort of pesticide to cause the smell? Red and white currants in the same area did not have this sharp herbal smell (it’s a smell that stayed on my fingers after I harvested quite a few).

[@forest4167]

I should also mention that I am a botanist so I have a definite positive ID that these are black currants.

[@freedomforestlife]

I think they do have quite a distinctive smell and taste, and also lots of good medicinal properties too. I'm not sure i would describe it as medicinal, defo sharp ... its very interesting though, because our blackcurrants are always a little tart, as I would expect, especially if even slightly under ripe, but I just can not get our red or white currants ripe enough that they loose their extreme sharpness and they have much larger seeds, whereas I here the opposite from others often, like you are saying about red and white currant! How come black currantare illegal for you? ✌️🌿

[@sabirul-haq1154]

We also grow blackcurrants. I was harvesting them yesterday, yes they do smell very strong. Hadn’t noticed it before until your comment made me more aware. We garden organically by the way, so not down to any chemicals. Thanks for a wonderful video!

[@freedomforestlife]

@@sabirul-haq1154 great to hear from more organic growers 🙌💚🙌 so glad you enjoyed the video ✌️💚

[@jacobspranger1267]

It's probably illegal here in the US because it's good and healthy for you. Mostly Politics im sure... our black current bush has almost a piney or a spicey aroma to them which I do not care for. Even the deer leave that one alone for the most part.