Any cheerful news today? (Nothing negative please! šŸ™‚)

It was absolutely stunning wasnā€™t it? Sort of apricot colour I think! If Iā€™d howled at it, it would most definitely confirm the neighboursā€™ opinions :rofl:

@AngelaR Is it Belasie? They look good :blush:

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Iā€™ve not yet been there @vero (thank you Covid) but am hoping to go soon. I think thatā€™s the right one, but I need to check with the friend who goes there once a year and recommended it!

one large container of strawberries, gratefully receivedā€¦ hurrah

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Excellent @Stella !(I do like typing your name :smiley: ) Youā€™ll enjoy thoseā€¦

I get a steady but smallish regular crop from my strawberry plants - picked some today and they are wonderful! Got some homemade vanilla ice-cream in the freezer too plus quite a few raspberries and just picked a big bowl of blueberries! No problem with desserts for a bitā€¦

Which reminds me - anyone got any good recipes with blueberries? If all else fails I just freeze them for later but am always on the lookout for what other people do. One year I made blueberry jam but it wasnā€™t overly tasty (the exact oppositeof the boysenberry jam I also made, which was far too strong and I subsequently made jam/jelly with half boysenberry and half applesā€¦

You have boysenberries? How do I get that plant, in France!

I send you one - they sucker like mad if not carfully managed. Wonderful flavour thoughā€¦

sucker? you mean like blackberries go everywhere and under the ground? does this mean more thorns less fruit?

They operate very like blackberries in many ways - and raspberries come to that. They are usually highly prolific on the fruit front but you donā€™t want a garden with nothing else in it :smiley:

Mine started out as (relatively) spineless and some of the new plants coming off it are also spineless and others are (very) spiney. I have been potting up the spineless ones and digging out the others. We moved the plant to a spot out of the veg patch (which has nice friable soil) and into an area near the edge of the plot where it is surrounded by grass so any new incipient suckers get mown! It all got a bit out of hand when we werenā€™t around to manage it (house moves, Brexit, business folding, you name it) but itā€™s all getting back in line now

Mmm sounds like you need a half-barrel semi-circular frame to grow it over. Not that Iā€™ve ever grown berries. But they are a favourite. iā€™m surprised you have them in France as I thought they were invented in New Zealand

I brought it from the UK a long while back. The ones on sale there were developed in the US I understand but they do exist in France. What I grow it on is three spaced horizontal wires stretched tightly between to posts (actually 3 as itā€™s a long run). They then grow cordon fashion along the wires. You tie the new canes in and prune out the old ones each year like you do with a lot of cane fruit.

If you fancy growing berries, raspberries are the easiest, particularly the autumn fruiting type as they usually donā€™t need any support.

Blueberries are easy too provided you have slightly acid soil.

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I grow ours in pots. Unfortunately the blackbirds have discovered them and they take them before they are fully ripe. Iā€™m lucky if we get two berries each!

They havenā€™t attacked mine at all this year I think they must have got confused because itā€™s normally a jungle down there and my partner cleared around the bushes!

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English tea cakes and YT :grin:

Abso-flipping-lutely!

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Lovely, lovely gardening weather today (and by the looks of it most of this week).
Temperature currently a pleasant 20 degrees (thatā€™s about 14 degrees down on yesterday - Iā€™m wearing a sweater!) and a fair bit of cloud. Bliss!

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A bit cooler today too but still none of the promised rain. Question now is, do I water the veg this morning or hope that the storms forecast for this afternoon actually arrive this time? :thinking:

Godd news about it being cooler is that I can tackle this yearā€™s batch of redcurrant jelly - certainly not something to do in 30+ degrees :roll_eyes:

Woken at 5.30am by thunder and lightening directly above us (not forecast until tonight) so rushed around protecting things and bringing in cushions.b

Happily not a tomato was harmed, and after three hours of torrential rain itā€™s now lovely. Perfect for hoiking out thistlesā€¦and I have dry cushions to sit on.

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I think you had ours. Our promised storms for yesterday evening never happened - weā€™d battened down all the hatches and I am currently unbattening them. Could have done with the rain. Young trees in the field need it.

Have a look at my post about Age being only a number. The storm must have taken three and a half hours to get to you.