Wednesday 2 July 2008

Strawberries...

I've not had a huge success with strawberries, or any other type of fruit for that matter, over the years. I find that the holey terracotta so-called strawberry pots are difficult to keep watered as the water just floods out of the holes and once my lovingly bought plants start to look a bit crunchy, I soon lose interest and give up. Then I've been disappointed to find that when I finally go to pick my measly couple of strawberries, they've already been nabbed by the squirrels in the garden! Actually, looking back to last summer, I think it may have been a very bad dog that enjoyed the spoils of my harvest.


This year, having gained more space by getting my allotment (which is proving to be very hard work on my own...but that's another story), I decided to make a little strawberry bed in my raised beds in the garden.




I only planted 8 plants, but they have already made lots of extra little ones on the runners that they produce, which I will attempt to peg down and make some more individual plantlets. I wouldn't say I've had a bumper crop - certainly not enough to consider making some jam. But I have had a couple of bowls of sun-warmed fruits, picked and eaten with minutes. With lashings of double cream. No photo, I'm afraid - too greedy!


But, horror of horrors, something has discovered them again and it's not of the canine variety. I know that because dogs and chickens are kept out of my vegetable patch at the moment by the installation of some stock fence. It could be squirrels or it could be pigeons, I'm not sure. But the long and short of it is that I have now netted my little strawberry bed and now sit back and wait for another bowl-full to ripen.

13 comments:

  1. As always, glorious photos ... don't they look yummy? I never had luck with strawberries - it was always birds who were the culprits in my case. x

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  2. I have those little wild ones in the garden. They look adorable, but are so pippy that nothing eats them!

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  3. those cheeky birds attacked mine too-netting and old cd's dangling on sticks has done the job this year though-don't think they like the look of Barry Manilow grinning at them whilst his face swings about in the wind!
    Don't they taste fabulous though, freshly picked, wipe on a sleeve and eaten warm from the sun?Bliss.x

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  4. Yum! We had to dig up all our old strawberry plants this year and didn't get organized in time to plant new ones, so we're strawberry-less :( Already looking forward to next year though. And I agree netting is a necessity!

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  5. It's birds - evil, evil birds. I even resorted to hanging baskets of strawberries to keep the slugs off, but the birds got them. Rotters.

    In our last house we had a carefully netted strawberry patch in the garden and you're right, there's nothing to beat sun warmed strawberries for breakfast!

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  6. How delicious - it sounds as though netting is the go and birds are the culprit.

    I am intrigued by your allotment story -

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  7. It could be some dratted mice!!! Grrr..

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  8. It could be some dratted mice!!! Grrr..

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  9. My last retriever used to help himself to the strawberries, I hardly got a look in!

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  10. They look so good that I'd sneak one away from you too!

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  11. Gosh thought I'd left a different comment above the same name as MY blog LOL..

    Oh they looks SO good!
    Hope you manage to keep the naughty one! We've had our garden beds netted against the birds but then adopted dog came home with us and has decided to bite his way through the netting aagggh!

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  12. We once had a dog that ate all the grapes off a little vine that grew against the garden wall. She then sicked them up which added insult to injury.

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