Josta berrys

Anyone tried Josta berrys ?
Any good ? easy to grow any probs ?

David

I grow Jostaberries in the UK. They're bigger plants than ribes currants, and take up more space for the yield, but they're easy to grow, they seem to like quite damper soil. Mine all get eaten before they even reach the house, so I can't comment on recipes or anything as they never make it that far!

I assume I can reproduce them like blackcurrents ?

David

My mom has a josta berry bush, and while I have no experience growing it, I have eaten the berries many times. They're not really as flavorful as I like, and they're annoying to pick and eat raw (you have to pull out the stem, as well as the butt of the berry, to be able to eat it, all the while getting your fingers stained). They're not bad, and I'd eat them if they were already on my property or if someone gifted me a bush, but I have no intentions of buying a bush and growing some on purpose. There's a lot of other berries I like better that I'd rather spend money and space on!

I have had a jostaberry bush in my garden for many years now. My dog loved it when she was around - she'd pick berries herslef, I pick the berries as a snack as I walk in the garden, it has an overtone of black currant which we jokingly called "skunky." (But I still find the berries enjoyable, maybe an acquired taste.)

It is extremely easy to propagate, just stick a dormant cutting into the ground will do. Actually several rooted in my orchard as mulch so I had to pull them.

For once I trimmed the bush into a mini-tree and somehow the whole single "vertical branch" became covered with fruits the next fruiting season and died after season (with a new shoot coming out of the ground, so the plant is still thriving there.)

One "use" of jostaberry - as I heard from an old nursery lady here - is to make a "gooseberry tree" by grafting gooseberry onto it. I have not yet tried it myself. This could be useful since one of my favorite gooseberry is a very low spreader.

I have 4 tree years old jostaberry trees grown from cuttings.
This is one of my trees that have most fruits on it.

Nice picture How big does it get and how much yield ?

David

Actually its video on youtube but on Serbian language, you can play video and than you can see how much fruit this tree have.
Josta grows about 150 - 200 cm in high.
People say that on well grown tree it can bear about 4-6 kg on my tree i estimate about 1-1.5 kg maybe more i don't know i eat fruits directly from tree .

My old phone cannot cope with video
Thanks I shall watch it next week
I bought a josta berry last autumn , first thing I did was take 5 cuttings . All rooted so I now have 6 plants , no fruit this year but with 6 bushes next year should be jam time