Almost daily diary!

Monday, July 11, 2011

Strawberry Sunday

Strawberry picking, a wonderful summer event, followed by jam making; it satisfies the 'hunter / gatherer' in me. And it is July, you'd think it was the perfect time. So off we go to our usual patch, but no. Loads of green strawberries, loads of plants with flowers on, loads of plants that have had strawberries on previously but none to pick. How disappointing.

Then it rained! We sat in the car until it stopped playing pencil and paper games, with the children bickering in the back and me hanging my head out of the car window every few minutes to see if the rain had stopped.

It did, eventually stop, so off we ventured again. We went on the hunt for raspberries next but got waylaid in the blackberry patch instead. Now you'd think it was much too early in the season for blackberries but these are the cultivated variety and are simply huge. Covered in juice and excitedly shouting out 'Look at this one!'we compared size and flavour. Reminding the children to only pick the very black ones we greedily filled our baskets as the rain started again.

As we left the nice lady at the farm said they'd have plenty of fruit right through to September, which is just as well as we are planning another visit soon.

Meanwhile the blackberries are already made into jam, with a few left over for blackberry and apple crumble. It may not look like summer has arrived yet outside, but in my kitchen it already smells like autumn.



6 comments:

Steve said...

The seasons feel so mixed up - it's no wonder nature is as confused as we are.

Maggie May said...

That sounded really good. Picking the fruit and then making jam. I bet you all ate a lot of the picked fruit too straight from the bushes!
You are clever being able to make jam. I guess I don't care for it enough to want to go to all that preparation.
Maggie X

Nuts in May

Tattieweasle said...

I always wonder why at PYO they don't weight you before and after as I know I eat nearly as much as I put in the punnet! Hope the jam turns out good!

nick said...

I've never made jam but when I was a kid my mum made it all the time. We grew umpteen types of fruit in our back garden and the jam lasted us for months and months.

Rubye Jack said...

It all sounds so good. You're lucky you have all that fruit there. Here, Oklahoma USA there's not so much nice yet. Any day now I hope!

Rob-bear said...

Strange seasons here, too. Too much water and flooding, followed by a bit of drought before the flooding ends.
Glad you had time to pick and make jam.