Fruit farm outing.

This morning, I went to the fruit farm and picked gooseberries and strawberries in the rain.

I went rather mad actually. There were some dessert gooseberry bushes, and you can hardly ever get those, so I got a basket of those. Lovely, plump, pinkish gooseberries. Then the ordinary green gooseberries seemed to be having a really good season this year. The fruit was absolutely enormous and just about leaping off the bushes into the basket; really easy to pick. So I got a whole basket of those. Then I went and got strawberries; a piled high, heapingly huge, basket of those.

After I'd got them all loaded up into the car, I discovered what the purpose of the random stretchy net thingy that came with my car is; it exactly stretches over five baskets of fruit, stopping the piled up contents from rolling around the boot. Very useful I must admit.

The strawberry syrup is finished and sat on the counter cooling before going in the freezer. All the gooseberries are in the freezer together with about four pounds of the strawberries.

I have a huge bowl of strawberries in the fridge and my lunch consisted of scones with strawberry jam, freshly sliced strawberries, and whipped cream. My dessert tonight was meringue nest filled with strawberries and topped with cream. My breakfast tomorrow will have strawberries on it..... and by about Wednesday, I will most probably look like a strawberry I will have eaten so many of them.

In a few weeks, and if we get the right weather for it, there will hopefully be blueberries from my carefully nurtured bush in the garden. Its covered in unripe berries right now, but there hasn't been enough sun to ripen them. And when they start to ripen, I will need to guard them closely. The spaniel really likes them and goes out in the garden under cover of darkness, on the pretext of needing to go to the toilet, then sneaks up to the blueberry bush and eats ALL the ripe berries.

She will do the same with any other fruit or veg, as well. The only thing I've ever grown that she didn't eat was potatoes... and that was only because they were underground so she didn't know they were there. :)

I do have some other veggies in the garden, but fewer than usual, and only the tomatoes are looking like they will do much.