Harvesting redcurrants

[goodolpete]

Well my bush is laden with berries. The problem is, the ripening strings
Have deeply red berries at the top and pure white ones at the bottom.
Has any reader got a wizzy way of harvesting redcurrants?

[Speed Gardener]

I've had this problem for the last couple of years on many of my redcurrant and blackcurrant bushes, particularly the earlier fruiting varieties. I put this down to the dodgy weather/late start to summer we've had in the last two years. The lack of sunshine is holding back the ripening on the strigs. You could remove a few leaves around the fruit to let more sunshine fall on them, or just wait for he bottom ones to ripen and take care not to lose the overripe top ones. I've found that it doesn't take much exposure to sunshine and warmth to close the gap between top and bottom ripening times. The late varieties don't seem to suffer from this problem because they get more of what they need to ripen.

[nickdub]

as long as you have more than you need I'd just pick the strigs off whole, then hold them upside down by the unripe end and use a fork in your other hand to separate the ripe berries into a bowl. Usually your time is the most expensive thing you put in to gardening, so there's no point wasting it.

[ameno]

If redcurrants are anything like whitecurrants, the ripe ones keep for weeks on the bush. So just wait until the lower fruit are ripe, the upper ones should be fine.

[goodolpete]

Thanks for all your replies.
Have stripped the leaves, which seems to have made a difference.
Incidentally, I couldn’t prune this bush last winter (recovering from heart problems)
and somehow, the harvest was twice as great as normal.

[Tripmeup]

If redcurrants are anything like whitecurrants, the ripe ones keep for weeks on the bush. So just wait until the lower fruit are ripe, the upper ones should be fine.

Agree with this..