Currant Conditions

Our Currant Conditions:

Black Currants and Red Currants have different growing characteristics.  There are different pruning strategies, harvesting times and of course there is as big a difference in taste as there is in color.  Keeping up with 6+ varieties of black currants as well as the “red-headed step kids” (Ribes rubrum plants) in row 2 is fun to track.

What are we growing? For the time being, only back and red currants (both now legal to grow in New York State since 2003), and we have (to date) over 130 plants and our varieties include the following…

Black Currants:

Tahsis - Flowers late mid-season, tolerant of late frost, has high levels of resistance to White Pine Blister Rust, resistant to mildew, and has very large fruit with mellow semi-tart taste and fresh berry aromas. Compared to the ‘old medicine’ varieties grown in the USA and Canada (such as Consort), Tahsis has intense flavor with notes of mango/guava, acidity, and a silky smooth texture – with little tannin aftertaste.

Risager – An early ripening currant variety from the Netherlands being mildew, rust and leaf spot resistant. It is also an exceptionally good flavored black currant, particularly for American taste buds – not musky, and very sweet and full of fruity aroma.

Minaj Smeriou – A Bulgarian black currant that has larger berries than Consort (the most common black currant in USA), with a great flavor; Sweeter and less musky, these berries are tasty enough for fresh eating right off the bush.

Swedish Black – The smallest plant variety of all our bushes and historically grown in Europe as a shrub; it also has the earliest ripening fruit that will produce dried fruit with excellent flavor. While being well known as a low producing variety, we decided to grow some Swedish Black plants for historical preservation of the cultivar.

Strata - Very large almost sweet fruit from small canes that tend to fall over and break in mature (3 to 5 years old) plants–  but worth the effort to wrestle with however, as it late season variety that can be enjoyed right off the bush. 

Titania – One of the first varieties developed to be ‘white pine blister resistant’ and to repopulate New York State farms when the law was changed in 2003.   It produces firm, and more mildly flavored berries  and was highly desired by larger farms as all its berries would all usually ripening simultaneously allowing for easier harvesting by machines.  We should note here that we do not use machine harvesters on our farm...

Red Currants:

Jonkeer von Tets – Our only ‘red currant’ variety (for now) and comes from Holland. It produces highly rated fruit known for its excellent flavor and fruit size and high production per bush. This early variety outperforms others but can be vulnerable to late frosts… We came very close to losing the red currant crop when temperatures dove down to <30ºF in Getzville, NY, in June 2025.

How we grow our berries is as important to our families as it is to yours!  While we will never be ‘organic certified’ please know we maintain the following standards:

  No Glyphosate

  No Melorganite

  Organic Fertilizers only

  No Pesticides

  No Herbicides

  No Machine Harvesting

We would be happy to tell you more. Please feel to contact us if you have any other questions. whoknows@thecurrantsitch.com

Risager  Black Currants almost ready for harvesting in 2025