Berryred

Berryfull

Jam today, jam tomorrow

Deploy nets

The allotment cat has only been working part-time and mice have been taking unripe strawberries and storing them at the base of raspberry bushes. Pigeons have a sweet tooth too, so nets and wire frames have been deployed. Still enough left for a human to harvest a kilo to make two jars of jam, with the promise of more to come.

5 a day

                       Soft fruit overlap. Jam experiments.

Smugly

                       Smugly self-sufficient-ish, for a bit.

Strawless berries

A handy few bales of straw might have prevented some of the berries from getting mud spattered during the downpours and the grey mould botrytis might not have taken quite a large proportion of the crop. Still, more than enough to harvest and process, what with all the other soft fruit demanding attention.

Clockwork Strawberry

The first ripe strawberry appears and tastes excellent. Coincidentally, eight years ago the first strawberry arrived on the same date.

Thirsty for a brew

The strawberry bed's not as packed as it's been in previous years. Quite a few of the plants are in flower and like everything else, they need a good watering a couple of times a week. They would probably benefit from some potash to encourage fruit formation or some of the first batch of comfrey fertiliser, which is brewing in a bucket.

Dearth

There's a peculiar lack of strawberries this year. The plants were healthy in Spring, flowered and were well watered and fed with potash. There seemed to be a good amount of berries forming. It's possible that birds have taken them, though they haven't before, even small, or large two-legged mammals. Odd. Perhaps there was a greater proportion of older plants to newly generated ones, maybe rain and wind at a crucial time prevented pollination, like on the Cox's apple tree this year ... but gardener's aren't supposed to mention the disasters, just focus on the positives.

First Berries

          The first gooseberries and strawberries of the season.

Daucus carota

 

 Haven't seen a carrot look like this before; left in the ground from last year overwinter, it's put on a lot of growth above ground this year and is now in flower.

Soft fruit relay

As the strawberry season comes to an end there are blackcurrants, redcurrants and gooseberries to harvest.

500 a day

The start of the strawberry harvest; expecting to pick around 500 grams a day for the next two weeks.

Producing

Fruity

 

Forage

Currant berries

Flowering