Berries

We've been away for the weekend, visiting grandparents in Scarborough. The weather wasn't great, so there wasn't a trip to the seaside, sadly, but we did manage to do a bit in the garden for them this morning -- clearing a patch of over-crowded day lilies (we pinched a few clumps for ourselves, which have gone into the holding bed at the bottom of the pond) and Japanese anemones (an anonymous blue-ish one; now in the long border). In its place went a rather nice fuchsia, 'Checkerboard', which was a present from a nursing home of which William used be chair of the trustees' board. We came home after lunch today, and have spent a few hours picking the soft fruit. It's been a poor year for gooseberries, with only one tub, but the currants have done very nicely. We'll freeze the blackcurrants, and bottle the red/white, as well as the gooseberries. There's a couple of weeks left, hopefully, in the raspberries, which we've been freezing, and the blueberries will probably start to ripen soon.

We think we've lost rather a lot of gold and green gooseberries to birds, which are able to get in through the chicken wire roof of the fruitcage (but not the 1" mesh walls). I think we'll get more mesh, and put this on top of the chicken wire: that way, the metal net can take the weight, but the knitted netting can keep the birds out. The nylon mesh, under the weight of snow, has ripped to a greater or lesser extent every winter, which is why we rebuilt the cage -- but if it doesn't keep the birds out, there's not much point.