Going red

At last I no longer need to look on enviously as other blogs proudly display photographs of the newly ripened strawberries that they have just harvested. Now we too have joined their ranks.

These berries are from Marshmarvel our earliest variety. It has been trying it's best to produce fruit since the beginning of April but the flowers kept falling foul of the cold weather which blackened the centres.

You may remember that last year we covered the strawberry bed (avoiding the plants of course) with a biodegradable mulch which we then covered with straw.

This was successful but the mulching fabric was very difficult to work with. Not only was it extremely lightweight but being thin and stretchy it wasn't easy to cut. So we had a rethink. We didn't want to just use straw as we have in the past. We have found that the straw still contains lots of seeds that are just dying to grow at the first opportunity and we have also previously suffered from weedy strawberry beds and don't want to go there again.

This year we've settled on using weed control fabric. So as not the damage the plants we cut the fabric into long strips to place between them - (sort of grid fashion).

The strips are held in place using old bricks.

We've also decided that we won't use any straw at all. To try to control the slugs we have watered the bed with slug nematodes, a biological control, that will need to be applied another twice during the season. The nematodes are posted out at appropriate times. It would be good to be able to treat the whole plot and garden with nematodes but this would prove far too expensive. We thought the strawberries and one or two other things were worth it.

So the weed and slug defences were in place that left the beady eyed birds who just see red as an invitation to dine. Before the first hint of red bird defences had to be in place before the berries turned. Net has been streched across the bed and also tucked under the brick.

The plants are producing lots and lots of berries so all we can do now is hope that our defences work! No doubt there will be some slugs and snails that bypass our defences so one tip that I read somewhere was not to remove any berries that have been slug nibbled. Apparently slugs and snails will retrace their movements back to a tasty meal and continue nibbling the spoiled berries whereas if it is removed they will move on to a new fruit. We've tried this and it does seem to work.

Strawberries weren't the only things turning red. The redcurrants were joining in and as always the blackbirds were on sentry duty looking out for the first sign of any redness. So much to their displeasure, which they demonstrated by chortling at us form the nearly trees, we have also netted these. We have used chicken wire near the ground, to hopefully prevent any birds trying to sneak under the wire from becoming trapped, and netting across the top.

We're feeling rather pessimistic about our prospective fruit harvest this year, hardly any plums (maybe in single figures), a handful of cherries, (if that - in spite of a mass of blossom) on top of which something is munching on the cherry tree leaves and the baby pear fruitlets have been jumping off the trees!

So we really do need to protect whatever manages to be produced!