It can’t be blackberry time already!

One of the things I love about this business is picking time. From June to mid October we are out and about picking strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants, blackberries, sloes, rosehips, bullaces, rhubarb and plums. We plan our diary carefully so that we have time to pick the best, juiciest, ripest fruits. There’s lots of number crunching involved. How many kgs of blackcurrants do we need this year? How much is in the garden, what’s the gap and has Karen at Grange Farm got enough for us?

Imagine our surprise when we were out walking the dog and saw that the first blackberries are ripe! That was the 7th July. We never pick blackberries til mid August at the earliest. What on earth is going on? It’s thrown us off course. the diary didnt have room for blackberries now, but nature has decided that it’s time, so you’ll see us around the local hedgerows from now, til they are finished.

What next? Strawberries in November?????