It might have been a miserable November so far, on the Pennine Mountains in the north of the UK at least, but despite the constant rain and fog and sunless skies, I'm picking alpine strawberries and a few Polka raspberries. I had some today with my breakfast cereal. The alpine strawberries taste so sweet and they make me smile; they look to be such delicate plants with dainty white flowers and very small berries but, like some people, they're a lot tougher than they look.
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| Alpine strawberries and Polka raspberries - November 2015 |
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| Alpine strawberries - November 2015 |
The raspberries are taking a beating though as despite all the flowers and the tiny green raspberries, this horrible weather is making some rot before they can reach edible stage. Still, I'm happy for whatever I can get.
The everfruiting, ever-yielding, perpetual strawberries, or whatever they are called, continue to flower and form fruit but the fruit isn't ripening because the weather is so diabolical. Instead, botrytis is getting a grip on some strawberries and raspberries. I cannot blame the plants. If I was stuck out there in the garden in all this weather, I'd go mouldy too! I've tried bringing the green but large strawberries indoors to ripen but it doesn't work; they just go soft then mouldy even though I dry them.
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| Perpetual, everfruiting strawberries in November 2015 |
