Saturday, August 07, 2010

Strawberry Fields Forever

Oh, I do hope so. We bought 12 plants of Marshmello at the start of the year and had loads of strawbs from them (well, apart from those that Tufty ate!). And now they're runnering furiously so I've planted them out and dug the runners in a bit (there are at least 50).

Here's looking forward to lots of luvverly strawbs next year.

And the rose hips are coming on well too.


I'm not growing them, you understand, but they seem unusually prolific this year. As a child, growing up in the Northeast (Ee, it were 'ard, we used to eat gravel for breakfast. Breakfast? Gravel?, you were lucky etc) us kids used to collect rosehips in the Autumn and sell them to the local chemist, who despatched them to some stonking great factory to make them into Delrosa, rose-hip syrup, which they then sold back to our mothers at greater cost than us kids got for selling them to the chemist.

Errm? Something not quite right there? Why didn't we just eat the rose hips & cut out the middle man? Not sure that ever occurred to us. Perhaps they're poisonous in their 'raw' state.

Did anyone else do this?

8 comments:

Damo said...

Ah more strawberries, always a good thing!

Sue Garrett said...

We grow marshmello - great strawberries - hope your runners take. We want to add to these this year with other varieties to give a longer season.

Greenmantle said...

We never collected Rose hips for commercial purposes when I were a lad; more for nefarious purposes. The seeds can be used to make itching powder. A schoolby staple in the days before elf 'n saftey, and Allergy Kids.

Nutty Gnome said...

Can't help thinking you're secretly trying to turn your allotment into a commercial strawberry bed Woody!!!

Off down to Devon for me jollies tomorrer - seethi ina forntight :)

The Allotment Blogger said...

Greenmantle's on the ball with why your mum's didn't cut out the factory - rosehip syrup is lovely but an itchy business to make.

We planted Alice this year to extend our strawberry season - lovely cropper! But I've cut all the runners off because the second year harvest is supposed to be the best and if you let the runners run, they take some energy from the plant.

VP said...

Just got some Marshmello plants and they're already fruiting and runnering :)

The Boy Ollerton said...

Whats rosehip syrup like, anyone tried?

Gordon Mason said...

Last time I had any was over half a century ago!! I faintly, but only faintly, remember it as being sweet (obviously) but with a slightly rosy, slightly nutty taste to it.

I've had rose-petal jam too and that was just sweet. Rose-hip syrup did at least taste of something.