[Propwash]

I have spent a couple of hours in the garden picking our soft fruit crops. Despite the miserable weather, wet and cold, during the whole month of May and into June, which has set my garden plants back a good month from where they were last summer, the soft fruit crop has been exceptional. The gooseberry has yielded more than we can get into the overfill freezer in the garage so will have to give some to friends unless we can eat them soon. Much the same with other soft fruit crops and I am sick to death of eating strawberries. The 2 dwarf apple trees look to be following suit if the birds don't peck too many. Is this a thing this year or have we just been lucky?

PW

[Pete L]

Where are you? A cold damp patch just after flowering seems to have cut our apple crop. Redcurrants and Loganberries fairly good. Gooseberries not yet ripe.

[mick w]

Plums Damsons and Pears were trashed by the week of frost in May , but should get half a crop of Apples

[Propwash]

Herts/ Greater London border. I really didn't expect much of a crop at all this year after the miserable start to summer. The runner beans are late, only just producing beans which will be another week or so to picking, but they too look productive now. Pleasantly surprised.

PW

[Bill McCarthy]

We have never had water rationing, but it can’t be far away - we haven’t had a decent downpour in weeks. We are still in the haar “season” but it burns away quickly by mid morning. July is normally the wettest month of the year up here - we normally see monsoon rains. Wild raspberries are about to fill out. Birds are having a tough time finding worms for their young. There has been good sighting of young Lapwings and Curlew taking flight. My hares are still with me as are the deer. They are bliddy hard to keep an eye on - they remain perfectly still until you are right up to them with the mower. The young deer are hard to shift, but if you get out of the tractor and attempt to lift them out of the way, it spells disaster for them as the mothers will reject them if they get the scent of us humans on them. It’s been a write off for the frog spawn - the ditches containing them have dried up, consequentially, the wild duck have to look elsewhere.

[PeteSpencer]

Our only two apple trees are well down, but herb garden is amazing: Will prolly dry and store the excess.........

[Charles Hunt]

Prop (or anyone else).

Please can you explain the attraction of gooseberries? Horribly sharp things that they need so much sugar they'll probably rot your teeth. And having done that they're full of hard an aggressive pips that get stuck in between your teeth leading to the inevitable removal of said fillings as you try to get the pips out.

Dentists must love 'em.

[cotterpot]

Dessert goozgogs are red and sweet

[mick w]

Gooseberry Crumble and Custard is delicious

[Charles Hunt]

.....and the pips are swollen larger and only very slightly softer.

[Propwash]

I am afraid, Charles that you are beyond help. Gooseberry crumble is, along with rhubarb crumble, the food of Gods. My gooseberries, and I forget the name, are red when ripe and very sweet, although I am toying with getting a green bush as well. That will depend on other decisions pending about whether we move or stay where we currently are.

PW

[Rob L]

Gooseberry fool was a desert to die for when I was a child (many decades ago).

They take some water to grow; I watch with interest the drought in the south-western USA states.

[Bill McCarthy]

Scrub round looking for gooseberries, just pick up a punnet of green grapes from Tesco - they are just as hard and “soor”.

[johnm]

Is anybody picking the fruit? There was much concern about labour shortages through to last month, but it seems to have gone quiet in the last couple of weeks........

[PeteSpencer]

Back door visas for plane loads of Romanians being discussed…,…,,,,