How should i prune black/white/red currant gooseberries and raspberries

[Minty]

Hi Guys. As you probably know, or not, i took on my first lottie in april of this year.I have never grown much fruit before.
It is seperated in to 3 parts by two well established rows of neglected black/red/white currants and what appears to be autumn raspberries(although they have been bearing fruit since July).As far as i am aware none have not been pruned for the last 3 years.
Would really appreciate some advice on how to prune them to get a good crop next year. Some articles i read say cut them right back to ground level............Yet i cant bring myself to do it. Am i paranoid or is there a better way. Thanks Kev

[Alison]

You really could do with pruning them to keep them in shape. If you have a look at the Ken Muir site, it gives quite good advice - http://www.kenmuir.co.uk/ under the Ask Ken section, sub section of Ken's horticultural advice. Just look up under the particular fruit. In theory you should have thinned your fruit bushes after they fruited and then cut back harder at this time of year but would have thought that you'll be OK. Re the raspberries, they've been fruiting early because last year's canes were left in. This means that they also produce some summer and autumn fruits. Good in a way as you get a longer season but it can lead to a very congested set of canes which don't produce the volume they should. I also have autumn ones and tend to leave about half the canes at the end of each year so that I get some summer ones but still a good crop in the autumn. Hope that this makes sense but if you search on raspberries then you'll find out more!