OUTDOORS 23

More crops on my next trip to the allotment crop - with beans, strawberries, gooseberries and spinach in abundance. One of my latest chores is to prepare the fruits. For example, with gooseberries, you need to take the top and bottom strigs off and rinse them - before cooking/freezing. This is a chore that means standing around fiddling about - but one can use the time to rest between more active chores, 'do something' before work, or meditate - so it is not wasted time.

Well, what a surprise - on my next trip there were even more gooseberries, strawberries, spinach and beans to deal with. Just to show an example of how many strawberries I have cropped this year - here is my fruit bowl filled with ONE days' cropping. I have had about 4 times this many - so far - at the close of the second week in June. The wine glass illustrates how big the fruit bowl is!

And, on my next trip to the plot - I brought home more crops - gooseberries galore, another stick rhubarb, more strawberries and the first half dozen raspberries! yes - the raspberries will soon be filling the freezer and my belly as are the gooseberries and strawberries now and was the rhubarb - which although dwindling still offers the odd stalk.

Even more crops... every 2-3 days I pop down to water/weed/crop - and seem to have a few bags to bring home with me. This time gooseberries, strawberries, spinach, broad beans and raspberries. Here we go again - another haul of crops - raspberries, gooseberries, garlic, strawberries and rhubarb this time.