Silver Creek Nursery Ltd.

Bareroot Grandma Julie Gooseberry

Species: Ribes uva-crispa

History: This variety is grown by Steph's grandmother on her home farm outside New Hamburg.

Why We Grow It: Nearly thornless, this variety produces large, pink, juicy berries that are great for fresh eating, cooking, baking, and juice. See the lovely gooseberry and Pink Pearl apple tarts Steph made pictured here! Steph recommends picking the berries when they are just blushing pink and letting them sit in a sunny window to ripen and get extra sweet! You'll know they are just right when they turn a soft red instead of greenish-pink.

A note on the "Grandma" Series: Inspired by Ken's 'Grandma Ethel Black currant', we decided to curate our own repertoire of family favourites! Check out our tried-n-true rhubarb and raspberries in addition to the currants and gooseberries.

Fruit Specs

Recommended Use: Juice, cooking, baking

Fruit Size: Large

Storage: Keeps up to two weeks in the fridge

Harvest: July - Late

Growing Specs

Canadian Hardiness Zone: 5

Soil Preference: Prefers loam but is adaptable to different kinds of soil

Flowering Time:

Bloom Colour: Greenish-white

Pollination Requirements: Self-pollinating, this variety will produce fruit without a different gooseberry variety but will produce more and better fruit if one is present

Sun/Shade Requirements:

Full sun to partial shade (approx. 6-10 hours of sun daily)

General Growth Habits:

Unknown, but likely hardy and relatively disease-resistant

Thorns: Few

Shipping vs. Pick Up

CLICK HERE to see how shipping compares to pick up.

Shipping: Every year we ship thousands of trees across Canada (except BC due to CFIA regulations). We carefully bag roots in damp sawdust, then box them and send them out via courrier. CLICK HERE to see our shipping policy.

Pick-up: We also have thousands of trees picked up from our nursery each year. The pick-up options is free, though you must wait until you have been emailed a confirmation that your order is ready to pick up, which will have further information such as hours, locations, etc. We really appreciate if you can make an appointment to pick up, then we can be as organized as possible during our busy season.

Size at Purchase

Currants and gooseberries are divided into the following grades:

1 year plant - 15-50cm
2 year plant - 30-80cm

There is some overlap in size since we are also taking the age of the plants into account. Some older plants may not have put on quite as much vegetative growth but will have larger root systems.

All of these heights exclude the roots since seedlings and some berries will often have a lot of root growth but relatively little vegetative growth (ex. our Shagbark Hickories seedlings are often 5-15cm above the soil but will have roots that reach 20cm+ in length).

Not all of our berries and seedlings will be available in all of these grades since growth rate can vary significantly across species and even varieties. While we remain competitive in our plant size, it's also worth noting we don't use synthetic chemicals to push vegetative growth, therefore you may find conventional nursery stock larger in some instances comparatively.

Why plant small? It's best to transplant when a plant is young so it can establish its roots before it has a lot of vegetative growth. This is much less stressful on it and bareroot plants tend to catch up and even surpass larger potted ones planted at the same time, after a few years.

Orders that are cancelled last minute due to size (being "too small"), will still incur the applicable cancellation fees if the plants are true to our grading standards as per the agreement of sale when the order was placed.

Size 1 year plant 2 year plant

Quantity