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Video For gardeners who are a lot of grief, sharp spikes on gooseberry bushes are delivered to amateur gardeners. One can get used to this peculiarity of the plant, but sometimes there are neither thick gloves nor scissors with long handles at hand. Fortunately, breeders were able to bring blessing varieties, which, moreover, give excellent yields of sweet and fragrant berries. These include gooseberry Commander.
Gooseberry Species
Gooseberry has many names: gooseberry, agrus, northern grapes, gooseberries, etc. The shrub is good because it can be planted in different soil, and it is surprisingly quickly mastered in new conditions.
The gooseberry is an excellent neighbor for other fruit crops and is divided into two groups:
- Varieties, which owe their origin to European craftsmen. These include: Triumphal, Industry, Green Bottle, Phenic and others. This group of shrubs has thorns, and annually brings a lot of sweet and large, reaching 50 g, berries. These are demanding shrubs that require careful maintenance. Frosts are rather badly tolerated. Young shoots are not resistant to insidious powdery mildew.
- Varieties that were obtained by hybridizing the above European varieties with wild gooseberry varieties, and with their American “brothers”.These shrubs are not so demanding on the conditions of planting and care, quickly form new shoots. These are: Chernomor, Baltic, Beryl and others. But, acquiring new qualities, these varieties have become noticeably inferior to the first group in taste of berries, which grow not so large and do not have such a pronounced sweetness, such as Finik or Triumphal.
All about Commander
This is a thick, medium-height gooseberry that has strong and not too thick shoots of a light green color. From the sunny side below the branches have a pinkish tint. There are no thorns in the bush.
The leaves are large, shiny, strong. The base of the sheet has a small groove, it is round or flat. The teeth are medium in size, sharp. The buds have an elongated oval shape, the tops are pointed.
The flowers are very beautiful, sometimes small, more often - medium, have the appearance of a bowl, are painted in greenish-yellow color with a faint pink shade, have two or three inflorescences.
Berries have an average - up to 5.5 g. Or large - up to 7 g., Are colored in brown-red color, because of what the shrub is called gooseberry red not prickly. The peel of the fruit is thin or medium thickness. The taste of the berries tart, sweet-sour, very pleasant.
This variety brings a good annual yield. The shrub is rarely hit by powdery mildew, and sawflies do not like it.
Rules for planting gooseberries Commander
For planting Commander well-suited soil:
- sandy,
- loamy;
- sod-podzolic.
Gooseberry Commander must be planted correctly. It is better to fence the site, which from all sides will be protected from gusts of wind, but at the same time the sun's rays will freely warm the branches of young bushes. You should not choose places where water stagnates. This circumstance can cause the death of gooseberries and infection with powdery mildew.
The planting of the Commodore variety gooseberry begins with ground work. It is necessary to dig holes 30 cm deep and about 60 cm in diameter. It is better if this is done in advance. The young plant needs fertilizers, therefore in each earthen deepening it is necessary to place up to 10 kg.straw manure, 300 g of wood ash( 40 g of potassium salt will be suitable as a substitute), up to 350 g of limestone, ground into powder.
Seedlings are placed in pits not at an angle, but straight. The neck of the bush should disappear under the earth mound at a depth of 6 cm, the branches at the surface of the earth can be sprinkled with earth. The soil must be compacted and water plentifully bush 5 liters of water.
Features of
care A lot of water will leak when the gooseberry Commodore gains momentum from year to year. Description of the variety includes features for the daily care of the plant. Shrub loves water, so the gooseberry bushes need to be watered regularly, especially on dry summer days and two weeks before the harvest. Land under the bush should be loosened, but this should be done with extreme caution so as not to hurt the root system of the plant. In the first year after planting, the bearingless gooseberry Commander needs nitrogen fertilizers, which are applied at the rate of up to 20 g per 1 sq. M.circle at the trunk.
What will pruning give?
After the young bushes are planted, after a year, by the fall, shoots grow, of which up to 5 of the healthiest and strongest should be left. By the end of the second year, more shoots will be added to the existing branches. They need to be reduced too to 4-5.In subsequent years, the care of gooseberries requires the conservation of from 3 to 5 equally distant branches. When it will be 5-6 years old, it is better to cut off old and diseased shoots: 3-4 each year, leaving so many annual branches at the roots.
Pruning should be done in early spring, until sap flow has begun, and even better in the fall, after the leaves have fallen from the trees. It is undesirable to leave hemp, which is an excellent "place of residence" for garden pests. You can not break off the branches manually. For pruning used pruner, garden saw or garden shears.
