Strawberry Delight!

The plot looks good in the sunshine - the crops are good, the weeds are few; but there is still no rain, despite the weather being sultry & oppressive.

I took mum to the Hill on Monday lunchtime for a look round & a spot of light PEA (reg) picking & POTATO (mona lisa) digging. We saw Julie (2nd best pl0t) with her sunhat & trug picking salad for tea.

She had some suspiciously tall lettuce picked, & when she saw that I'd spotted them said, 'If I take all the leaves off the stalks, no one will notice that they've bolted. I'd forgotten that they were interplanted with the taller brassicas, & it was only after they got to a couple of feet tall & I saw them peeping over the top of the cabbages that I remembered them!'

We discussed what a good year it had been for strawberries - Julie hasn't been able to give them away quick enough.

'After all,' she said, 'there is only so much strawberry jam, sorbet, crumble & syrup you can make with the ones that are left over from plain eating - & I've offered them to everyone here to help themselves too.'

At this point I confessed that I knew of her great strawberry glut though Rhubarb Brian, potager Chrissie & cheery Brian & Pauline, all of whom had told me over the past week or so that family Julie were overrun, & so I'd taken the liberty of picking a pound or two myself in order to make a batch of strawberry wine - there will be a bottle put aside for Julie, of course.

Actually I had another cheeky source of strawberries to use for jam this year at home - next door have moved away & the house is empty, so with a fence panel removed between our gardens whilst I have some work done at the back, there has been ready access to their strawberry patch - better to be used that to be left to rot, I say.

Maybe I should give the new people when they arrive a pot of jam.