Maintaining bush plants in pots (or, a recipe for happy gooseberries)

I have a certain fondness for gooseberries, something that I think is shown by the fact that I’ve squeezed five bushes (two green hinnomakis, two red hinnomakis and a trusty old invicta) into my tiny space. They’re marvelous things, gooseberries, useful for everything from a liquor to liven up fizz through to pies. They’re one of those fruits that I think are a brilliant idea to grow in small spaces because they’re hardy but also grow an expensive crop so you’re maximising what you save on fruit as well as enjoying tastier produce. I grow my gooseberries in containers because of the size of the garden and they’ve done rather well (even if they were decimated by caterpillars last year). But one of the things that always concerns me about growing soft fruit in pots is the quality of the soil. Although I’ve got them in nice large and roomy wooden troughs, the soil does start to get that dull, brittle-looking quality to it every so often. So today’s job in the garden (wobbling perilously on my knee scooter because of my hateful lisfranc injury) was to prune back the long dangling spiky arms of the gooseberries and to work in some good quality compost to invigorate the plant as it starts to leaf again. Container planting is difficult at times because the soil can get really tired but working in well rotted manure and compost always works for me!