What a difference a week makes, and especially when there's a heat wave. With lots of pre-Christmas harvesting, and the loss of a fair bit of the raspberry crop to sunburn from the previous weekend, our regular Boxing Day crowd of berry enthusiasts had their work cut out filling their buckets. Some did better than others, with the early birds able to get a few blueberries too. So, for those yet to come down to the farm, the not-so-good news is that the early season summer berries have come and gone, with raspberries of all colours nearly finished, as too for youngs, boysens, gooseberries and currants.
Our strawberries have been a non-event this year, so far, but may redeem themselves over the later summer season coinciding with the main blackberry crop -which does look promising, having been successfully covered with shadecloth ahead of the heat wave. Look out for a further post when they become plentiful.
Also hoping the apples, which have set well and had a very clean start to their growing phase ( due to the dry spring) may provide for some good U-pick activity from March until after Easter. Its the proverbial swings and roundabouts of farming!