Blackcurrants are easy to grow and more tolerant of heavy soils than other currant bushes. Just one plant can provide a generous crop of berries. If blackcurrant bushes are kept well fed and watered you could be harvesting fruit a year after planting.
Choose an open and sunny site. Fork over a wide area of ground, then dig a hole deep enough to accommodate the roots of your fruit bush.
Tip plenty of garden compost into the hole and fork it deep into the soil.
Sprinkle a handful of fertiliser in the hole and fork it into the soil.
Spread the roots of the blackcurrant bush out evenly across the hole area, teasing them out carefully.
Fill in around the roots with soil, firming it down with your foot as you go, to remove any air pockets.
Water the plant in well, soaking the area to help settle the soil down around the plant’s roots.
Prune all the shoots right back to encourage new growth from below soil level.
By summer the bush will have formed plenty of new shoots that will carry fruit the following summer.