It's Berry Good.

It's berry time and I have been picking strawberries from the tower and a couple from my new hanging baskets ones.

From the Strawberry Tower

 I ended up making little pies with a combination of  home grown rhubarb and strawberries. Served hot with icecream and it's been super delicious.





Today I picked some mulberries, the first of the blueberries and more strawberries.




 Mulberries,Blueberries and Strawberries.

 This week  the mulberries have started coming on. I pruned the tree several months ago right down to fence height, and didn't think I would get mulberries this year. The tree is loaded. The bonus is I can reach the berries without having to climb up a ladder, which usually results in berry juice on my clothes.


Mulberry tree.

I have also started covering the fruit against fruit fly. These are  apples, again, I pruned this tree by nearly half and really didn't expect any, isn't nature great.

Tropical Apple Anna, fruit just starting to develop.

Paper using them up as I prefer the organza.

Organza, in this case wedding bags.

I cover the fruit with bags either fabric or paper, also if I get a run of fruit, up a branch, I will be making long tubes with fly wire screen or fine net that is used to cover trees. It is getting too hard now to climb ladders and throw net across the trees like we used to, so my aim is to keep the trees low. Not as much fruit of course, but then I usually have to turn it into pickles or jam and we have a ton of that already so could do with a few lean years.











We used to cover out trees like this and then they got very big, so we then used one large net to cover two trees, but it was so awkward to get to the trees. The rats then started to eat the fruit having easy access to this.  Having cut back all the trees for this season, I am hoping to get a small quantity of fruit, rather than the rats.

Peachcot, Mulberry and Nectarine in the early days.  They got twice as big. It does give shade for the chickens.

Plum Tree in full blossom

This is a double plum, it is nearly 5 years old and hasn't done that well, to hot a climate is my thought but this year it has really taken off, and ..... its been much colder.



Taken looking down from the Verandah.

I can't get over the poppies they are doing so well so thought I would end with another picture of them. The colour is just fantastic. Definitely doing them again next year.

California Golden and White Poppies.

I hope you are enjoying this blog, my daughter is helping me play around with it so to get it a bit more streamlined. She is telling me to make photos bigger so giving it a go. All comments greatly welcomed. A subscribe button has now been attached for the regulars. For those interest there has been nearly 700 visitors since I began on July 12th. so a big thank you, for being interested.