Strawberries

A local supermarket is selling cardboard punnets of deep red strawberries (no clingfilm) bearing the legend 'picked today at 6.00 am in Kirkham'.   My thoughts go out to the agricultural workers of the Fylde who on hearing the dawn chorus rise up to gather and pack this lovely fruit.  I am tempted to buy them but remember that to pick strawberries I have only to go out of my back door.

It was not always so.  Strawberries grew well on our allotment, once again a substantial donation from H and an additional plant of the giant variety brought from Cheshire.  But they suffered from several drawbacks.  Firstly, as I posted at the time, I ignorantly planted some of them in a frost pocket and neglected to protect them adequately.  Cold weather caught us unawares in the warm south east and frost blacked out the centres.  There was nothing for it but to pull off the damaged flowers and wait for the succeeding buds to grow.

Secondly, as with the cultivation of our raspberries, hot dry summers often prevailed.  This meant many trips to the water tanks.  Weeds were also a perennial problem, particularly as I did not think to clear the ground, put down weed suppressant black fabric and finally make slits in this for the strawberry plants.  Too mean to buy fresh straw, I sifted out dry stuff from the communal manure heap for the ripening fruit to rest upon and was surprised when meadow grasses germinated.  Too sentimental to save only the strongest plants I let runners proliferate and found them growing into the grass paths or tangling over each other in the centre of the bed.

But limited space once again helps me to concentrate on good growing.  We have a healthy selection of plants from my sister's.  They are in rich soil, against a wall, sensibly spaced and netted against the pigeons.  They are late by southern standards but in traditional time for Wimbledon.

Home-grown strawberries, home-made cake, a sprig of mint and for cream substitute some Holmfirth yogurt.  Enough is as good as a feast.