Gooseberry Bush — SteemCN

As a child I remember enjoying my grandmothers garden. Among other things, she had many kinds of berries including a massive gooseberry bush. My cousin and I always called them "moonberries," not a clue why, just for fun I suppose.

I also remember us trying to eat them every time we visited, resulting in well puckered faces and us declaring they would never be ready.

I took this picture of her house on my last visit, it's a typical soapbox style and unfortunately the foundation has let go and the cost of fixing it is just too high. So there it sits until it eventually falls. It overlooks the ocean and has endless memories for all her friends and family.

Now I have my own garden and last year I bought myself a beautiful little Gooseberry bush! Unfortunately for gooseberries, their leaves are irresistible to many different bugs, and last year I was too late in realizing caterpillars had totally taken over. It was a fine battle but eventually the caterpillars won and ate nearly all the leaves. I was afraid that it wouldn't come back this year but to my surprise it came back and grew a bunch too!

This year I'm armed with neem oil and hopefully I can ward off the little munchers. So far it has been eaten a bit on one branch, no visible bugs though so hopefully they moved on.