Is it only me, or has anyone had fantastic crops of juicy strawberries
this year whereas last year mine were rubbish
. No blackcurrants this year but goosegogs are good as well. Birds have had most of my redcurrants.
Strangely, without even netting, both birds and slugs/snails haven't had many either.
It would have been a more fruitful year if it hadn't been for the pigeons, blackbirds and squirrels. Only the netted stuff has survived.
The apples are looking promising.............so far!
Since banning blackbird from polytunnel. Having a fantastic crop of strawberries. I’ve had a few black & red currants, raspberries & gooseberries. But more than happy for blackbird to help themselves to those.
I netted my strawberries and had a good crop, picking the last of them today.
I don’t cut down all my autumn Raspberries Instead leaving a few at the ends of the row to get an early crop and they’ve just started fruiting. They don’t get netted after a bird got caught and it took ages to free him. Anyway there’s usually plenty for us all.
(18-07-2021, 08:53 PM)Veggie Wrote: [ -> ]It would have been a more fruitful year if it hadn't been for the pigeons, blackbirds and squirrels. Only the netted stuff has survived.
The apples are looking promising.............so far!
My apples are non-existent. I think the late frost (end of June) caught the flowers.
I'll swap you apples for strawberries.
Strawberries have been very productive but not very tasty so far. Elsanta is definitely getting ripped out at the end of the year, the taste I find completely watery and awful. The birds have been pecking at the fruit which escape the netting, though even they don't seem to like Elsanta.
Blackcurrant (Titania) gave a decent harvest for its first year of fruiting. Don't particularly like the taste on their own but they're nice mixed with other berries and yoghurt.
Blueberries are starting to ripen now, as always I find them tricky to pick at peak ripeness (slightly under ripe can be a bit tart).
Gooseberries have been smothered by other plants so they'll probably be dug out and put into pots for next year. Turns out they're both Hinnomaki Red instead of one red/one green, obviously someone at Aldi switched the labels. Not too fussed about eating them so the birds are welcome to have a peck.