g'day I'm mark from self-sufficient me
and this is a sale on Hill gooseberry
and I wanted to show you this plant
because this is the first season that
it's really fruited well for us it's
about five years old it produces a small
I suppose blueberry sized berry it's
might be a little bit bigger than most
blueberries but it's very similar in
looking to a blueberry it's got a sort
of velvety coat on it it's a very tasty
fruit it's I would say it's more like a
fig blueberry cross has some small tiny
edible seeds inside and I want to try to
turn this into Jam this plant here is
about five years old
it's fruited a few times over that five
year period and each time it got better
pardon the wind here it could be
affecting the mic I can't really help
that too much I haven't got my
professional sound team here today but
anyway so this year it fruited a lot I
mean I've already picked about 200 and
we've been just eating them fresh and
giving some away and I think I've
probably got around 3 or 400 fruit left
that I can pick just as a guess so I'm
going to go ahead pick them all but
before I do let me just tell you a
little bit more about it it's a plant
that comes from Asia originally it can
be grown from seed it does like a warm
subtropical climate but it can do well
in cooler climates also in some places
you might have to protect it from birds
because obviously birds like berries but
I haven't had that problem here where I
live
the other thing is fruit fly because
this fruit ripens later in the year
coming on to our winter our fruit fly
aren't as prevalent so they don't sting
the fruit and that's another good thing
about growing it in my region I have a
hard time growing blueberries just due
to due to our climate and soil type as
well but I don't have a problem growing
the ceylon hill a gooseberry the shrub
gets about neck high it can get up to
two meters they say but I've just seen
this like a are spreading it's about
three meters across two meters this
other way and probably a meter and a
half high that's about as big as I think
it's going to get I've given it a bit of
a trim back it seems to be pretty much
self shaping and I just think it's a
great plant as far as fertilizer and
watering goes I really don't give it a
lot of fertilizer I might just throw a
little bit of chicken in you around the
base here and there but over the last
five years I haven't really concentrated
my efforts on it much it's sort of just
been a plant that's I've left grow here
next to my apple trees watering yeah now
that it's started fruiting you know
pretty much from flowering I gave it
quite a bit of water I just made sure
that I have a really long dry spells it
got a good drink but I haven't
concentrated on continually keeping the
water up to it it seems to be fairly
drought Hardy as well I've growing it on
slightly raised soil here but as far as
that goes
there's not much upkeep to a plant like
this if you wanted to grow this in an
ornamental part of your garden this
looks fantastic when it flowers is
extremely pretty and it looks very nice
from a street ass back door in a
ornamental hedge type of situation where
you get all these beautiful
pink flowers and they're quite
long-lasting let me grab a few and I'll
come over to the camera and we'll have a
bit of a taste and I'll show you a
close-up of it they fall quite easily
once they're right they they fall off
the branch easy so when you're picking
them you can lose a few and you might
see in a windy situation like this but
fruit fall when it's ready so I would
definitely look on the ground and I'm
going to do that once I've finished
picking all this to see if I can pick up
any stragglers if there is a problem
with birds or insects getting to your
berries you may have to throw our net
over but like I said I don't have to
worry about that because it seems that
the birds and insects haven't found my
berries yet and hopefully they never
will okay except a look here that's what
they look like they've got this little
sort of guava type base and that's the
end that's that you make the fruit off
that's attached to the stem and let me
bite into it
it's got a pink or purple red jelly like
pulp and small tiny really tiny fig sort
of seeds in it and it does taste a bit
fee you can hear the whole whole we can
just bite it down to that end bit and
try that a better way I just pop them in
I need a more hole like that they're
good I like the little seeds giving a
bit of crunch I'm not sure how they're
gonna go in the jam that I'll make but I
think that it might make a nice cheese
Jam so as with most berries there I'm
really good for you of course you've got
the vitamin C and all those other
beautiful vitamins that you can get in
eating fresh fruit like this so I think
what I'll do now is pick a whole bunch
of them and then I'll show you the
harvest
radio I had a good time picking all this
fruit and I can keep seeing the odd one
to grab I've picked up about fifty off
the ground itself underneath the tree
because this wind has been knocking that
fruit off it's amazing how much fruit I
have picked just in you know 15 20
minutes just about filled up this whole
bowl here
I feel like this probably two kilos of
fruit here so about four pounds which is
quite a lot of berries and there's still
more to pick yeah now one thing I didn't
tell you guys about was that you really
should be picking them when they're
fully ripe because if you pick them when
they're not quite ripe and I'll just
show you this put this down there is a
ripe one see how deep purple it is like
a blueberry and there's one that's on
the way to being ripe but you would
think that that's close enough that red
no it's not that doesn't taste anything
like this one this tastes sort of dry
and even bitter and the seeds are a
little there's not much jelly inside
I'll just say you have a look at the the
one that's not quite right
to the one that is the one that is well
you can taste the sweetness in this
sugar straight away this one is um just
sort of it's just no good now there's
quite a bit of difference in taste but
it could be a week or so in ripening for
a small berry but I take a surprisingly
long time to ripen so that's the other
thing be patient let it ripen these have
been hanging on my tree for a month
I saw it flower and that flow'd a couple
of months ago and you know it's taken
almost all through summer to grow this
fruit and ripen up so it is quite slow
for a small berry but it's definitely
worth the wait
here's the berries
great isn't it
well the top harvest anyway I might as
well finish this video off here pretty
happy as you can see with my harvest of
Silent Hill what a gooseberries like I
said the plant is a fantastic the
ornamental plant gets to only about a
meter and a half high max can be quite
spread e up to about 3 meters but
beautiful flowering a lovely fruit that
will surprise you and how good it tastes
and I'm going to turn this into a
beautiful cheese jam I'll show you that
in another video though and I'll give
you my word I will but for this I'll
just sign off now and say if you can get
your hands on a sale on Hill gooseberry
go for it because not only will light
your garden up but it'll also be a
beautiful fruit just to snack on just
like any other barriers or to turn into
a jam which I'll be doing very shortly
thanks a lot for watching bye for now
fantastic you be Yuki