by Lee Reich 

Black currant fruits are “of a stinking and somewhat loathing savour, the leaves also are not without the stinking smell,” wrote herbalist John Gerard in his famous Herball over 350 years ago. I disagree. I relish this fruit. And as far as the smell–no, the aroma–of the leaves: I think it makes pruning black currant bushes or even brushing up against them a heavenly experience.

Odd that Mr. Gerard should write so venomously against the plant. Of many people that have smelled black currant leaves in my garden, no one has given the rich, resinous aroma anything but praise. The leaves even have been and are used to make a tea, both for their flavor and medicinal properties. The fruit was just coming into cultivation in Gerard’s time, and in the 350 years since publication of the Herball, Europeans have grown exceedingly fond of the fruit. Usually, the fruits are cooked up into a delectable jam or squeezed to make a rich-tasting juice (Ribena is a well-known British brand). In the Bordeaux region of France, black currant fruits are made into the liqueur cassis.

It’s not only for the taste that northern Europeans (and I) enjoy black currants. The fruit is extremely high in vitamin C, and even before vitamins were known, the fruits were called “quinsy berries” for their soothing effect on sore throats.

So how come hardly anyone here in the U.S. grows black currants? The reason traces back to the end of the 19th century, when a disease called white pine blister rust hitchhiked into this country on some pine trees from Ireland. The fungus that causes white pine blister rust needs two different host plants–a white pine and a susceptible Ribes, a genus that includes gooseberries and currants–to survive. To keep this disease from threatening the valuable white pine timber crop, the federal government decided to ban the planting of Ribes.

The ban’s effectiveness was limited, though, because of the many wild Ribes in our woods, and the great distances that disease spores could travel. And anyway, most cultivated gooseberries and currants are resistant to the disease. So the federal ban was lifted in 1966 and put under state mandate. Nonetheless, while the federal ban was in place, two generations of Americans forgot about how good gooseberries and currants tasted.

Black currant is the most susceptible of all cultivated Ribes to white pine blister rust. But thanks to Canadian fruit breeders in the 1960s, a few rust-immune varieties–Consort, Crusader, and Coronet–were developed. Since then, a number of better-tasting rust-immune or rust-resistant varieties have been identified, varieties such as Titania, Belaruskaja, and Kirovchanka.

In addition to good fruit and pleasant aroma, black currants have other qualities to recommend their planting. Deer evidently concur with Mr. Gerard about the aroma, because they rarely nibble the plants. Mice agree: In a winter, when they girdled many plants beneath the snow line, only my black currant plants were left consistently untouched. Insects, diseases, even birds, similarly keep their distance.

The only care the plants need is pruning. One year old stems bear best, so all that’s needed is to each winter cut to the ground stems that are going into their second year.

Black currant is a quietly handsome bush. No visually notable flowers adorn the stems nor do the leaves light up with fall color at the other end of the season. But all season long, beginning early in spring and continuing well into fall, the bush is attractively clothed in lush, forest-green leaves. As an edible specimen shrub, give black currant six feet of elbow room all around; as an edible hedge, set black currant plants three feet apart. No need to choose a site in full sun, as required by most other fruits, because black currant will grow and fruit well in sun or part shade.

There is only one thing that you should not expect from a black currant bush, and that is “black currants” such as are sold dried in boxes in the markets. Those are dried ‘Black Corinth’ grapes, a small grape dried and shipped for centuries from a Greek port of that name. Those raisins came to be called bastarde corinthes and corans on their way to being called “currants.”

Black currants are so delectable and easy to grow that they warranted a whole chapter in my book Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden, available, among other places, at leereich.com/books/uncommon-fruits-for-every-garden. 

Lee Reich, PhD (leereich.com) is a garden and orchard consultant; he hosts workshops at his New Paltz farmden, which is a test site for innovative techniques in soil care, pruning, and growing fruits and vegetables.