Allotment hours: Me 25 He:24

A trip up the allotment was a must after our little break in York. 

(Well two trips actually)

As usual it was a bit of a shock at the amount of weeds that had grown in just one week!

  Feel free to click photos to enlarge

The first thing we had to tackle was the rampant growth of the fruit bushes on the left hand side and more weeds - which was a mammoth task and took us 2 hours to accomplish.

 The blackcurrant, redcurrant and loganberry bed has been weeded, and harshly trimmed so that they all fitted comfortable back under their netted framework - the birds had already started on the redcurrants!

I have weeded yet again the now tidy strawberry bed, and picked the remaining rhubarb at the back - so whilst not looking the perfect of cages - at least it is secure from marauding birds (and other 'night time' visitors of the human variety!)  It's too much trouble to pull up the stakes and get under the netting to pick my crop - at least I hope that this year it will be!

I have already picked almost 5lb of strawberries - eaten most of them with ice cream or yoghurt, but last night whilst Mr Lottie was out bowling I made...........

Five pounds of strawberry jam.  And yes, I know, the  bottom left jar has a little bit of the 'froth' in it - but actually it seems a waste to wash it down the sink, as it tastes lovely just like the strawberries and does not in the least detract from the flavour of the jam - in fact when spread on crusty bread and  butter, you can't even notice any difference from the rest of the jam!.

Mr Lottie was working hard weeding this bed

Before

After - although I didn't give him quite enough time to finish it as I have a strict allotted time that I can stay out in the sun - with everything covered up and prescribed factor 50 sunscreen on my face which is so thick and white I look like a clown! Yes really!

Some surprises amongst the weeds were some lovely little new potatoes - grown from any tiny ones that missed the harvest last year!  We had some today with home grown salad and boy were they buttery and delicious!

 The squash were in dire need of a drink

 So we soaked them

 

Admired the new potatoes  and........

I picked the remainder of the gooseberries off one of my two bushes

(I had already picked some before we went away, before someone else did)

In just a week they had gone from small to.......,

 

4lbs of very large gooseberries - now topped and tailed and in the freezer.

A very busy four hours over two days - but very rewarding.

 Off to have some home grown fruit salad with lashings of thick yoghurt!

TTFN

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