I ate my first red currant of the year today! Ok, it wasn't /quite/ as
ripe as I first thought. But it was red! And curranty!

--

Vicky wrote ...

I ate my first red currant of the year today! Ok, it wasn't /quite/ as
ripe as I first thought. But it was red! And curranty!


We always found a surefire way to tell when they were ripe, the mice took
them.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

Bob Hobden wrote:
I ate my first red currant of the year today! Ok, it wasn't /quite/ as
ripe as I first thought. But it was red! And curranty!
We always found a surefire way to tell when they were ripe, the mice took
them.

Were they extremely tall mice?
I think ours have always been chomped off by the pigeons and other wee
birdies (do jays eat berries?). We have 2 redcurrant bushes, and every
year the early one is stripped bare before I get a berry - this is the
very first one I've had in 3 years! But hten the second bush ripens and
all the birds are too fat from the first bush to eat any, and I get a
whole freezer full. But this year Nick has netted it early.

On May 28, 11:54*pm, wrote:
Bob Hobden wrote:
I ate my first red currant of the year today! *Ok, it wasn't /quite/ as
ripe as I first thought. *But it was red! *And curranty!
We always found a surefire way to tell when they were ripe, the mice took
them.

Were they extremely tall mice?
I think ours have always been chomped off by the pigeons and other wee
birdies (do jays eat berries?). *We have 2 redcurrant bushes, and every
year the early one is stripped bare before I get a berry - this is the
very first one I've had in 3 years! *But hten the second bush ripens and
all the birds are too fat from the first bush to eat any, and I get a
whole freezer full. *But this year Nick has netted it early.

when fully ripe they get translucent


NT

NT wrote:
I think ours have always been chomped off by the pigeons and other wee
birdies (do jays eat berries?). ?We have 2 redcurrant bushes, and every
year the early one is stripped bare before I get a berry - this is the
very first one I've had in 3 years! ?But hten the second bush ripens and
all the birds are too fat from the first bush to eat any, and I get a
whole freezer full. ?But this year Nick has netted it early.
when fully ripe they get translucent

I am aware of this. It doesn't seem to deter the birds.

Sacha wrote:
Were they extremely tall mice?

Eh? Mice climb. I've seen them being very ambitious on a fig tree in
a long-ago garden!

Hmm, I've seen them climb almost vertical walls (it's great fun watching
them on the tube), but I've not seen them up branches.

Martin wrote:
They can climb blank walls. We had mice climb a larder wall that had a
supermarket plastic bag full of packets of crisps hanging on a hook on
wall. They not only got into and out of the bag, they also ate a lot
of the crisps.

They keep nibbling the underside of things in our fruit bowl. :-(
It's extremely unpleasant to pick up an item of fruit and find your fingers
go into the squishy nibbled invisible bit.

Vicky wrote

Sacha wrote:
Were they extremely tall mice?

Eh? Mice climb. I've seen them being very ambitious on a fig tree in
a long-ago garden!

Hmm, I've seen them climb almost vertical walls (it's great fun watching
them on the tube), but I've not seen them up branches.

I don't think birds store food in little holes under things, kept finding
little stores of berries under brassica leaves, rhubarb leaves etc.
We had a White Currant (what do you use that for?), a Red Currant and a
Black Currant but I got so fed up with the aphid attacks and the mice I
grubbed them out and replaced them with 4 dwarf cherry trees.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

Bob Hobden wrote:
I don't think birds store food in little holes under things, kept finding
little stores of berries under brassica leaves, rhubarb leaves etc.
We had a White Currant (what do you use that for?),

I just eat them! They're lovely. I only have 1 white currant bush, but it has
grown hugely this year.

a Red Currant and a
Black Currant but I got so fed up with the aphid attacks and the mice I
grubbed them out and replaced them with 4 dwarf cherry trees.

How odd. We have almost nothing troubling our currants, other than that one early
redcurrant bush. I've not had an aphid problem or a mouse problem, only birds and
weeds. Bindweed and sticky grass, twitch and dandelions. The cherry in the garden
is almost totally munched by pigeons.