The gooseberries in my garden are already starting to swell especially the green-fruited ‘Invicta’. I planted six standards which I bought from Waterperry Gardens, four years ago. Two are ‘Rokula’, a pink-fruited later variety that never seems to get heavily laden, and four are the green-berried and prolific ‘Invicta’.

One of my ‘Invicta’ bushes was so heavily laden it snapped – but thankfully it was on the outer edges and I was left with a neat row of five survivors.

Gooseberries are the first fruit of the summer and picked young they are delicious. They freeze well and they can be added to fruit compotes – and yet they are unpopular.

Is it the thorns? Is it the tart flavour? Or is it the fact that they are not brightly coloured? I noticed the prejudice when I planted them.

Several villagers commended my choice of standard roses positioned up the path. When I told them they were gooseberries I’m sure I saw a sneer or two.

You can’t eat roses and the gooseberry is a delicious treat to me. They are easy to grow and most varieties crop abundantly if planted four feet apart.

They tolerate some shade, are they are selffertile so one bush can crop on its own. They are also hardy and resilient, and they survive the wind.

They do well in villages like mine where colder temperatures are the norm.

Despite all that, visitors halfway through a dish of mixed fruit rich with blackcurrants often stall when they detect a tell-tale translucent gooseberry skin.

Admittedly the gooseberry is prone to two rather disfiguring complaints – American Gooseberry Mildew and the Gooseberry sawfly.

Older varieties are more prone to this mildew, which is caused by water stress, and now there are newer varieties that shrug it off. ‘Pax’ has sweetish red fruit. ‘Hinnomaki Red’ (very similar to ‘Whinham’s Industry’) and ‘Hinnomaki Yellow’ are also being offered for their mildew resistance.

Both produce exceptionally large fruit. Sawfly is often kept in check by birds who eat the grubs off the bush in summer and scratch them up in winter.

Gooseberries are very decorative and mine are underplanted with lots of summer-flowering herbaceous anthemis, lavender and penstemon. Tulips also surround them – chiefly the scented, terracotta-coloured ‘Ballerina’.

As they finish, the best allium of all takes over – ‘Purple Sensation’. This late-May ornamental onion reaches a metre high – with stately stems topped by deep-purple orbs that measure about four inches in diameter.

Other alliums I grow are either an inferior colour, or the heads are over large for the height of the plants.

The June-flowering silvery ones need a hot spot to survive a bad winter but ‘Purple Sensation’ is a rugged performer.

All alliums should be planted in September and ‘Purple Sensation’ is readily available.

The only thing is, it must emerge through a sea of foliage because the leaves often fade bore the flowers appear.