Home Made Strawberries

Can't get much better than strawberries grown in your own garden.  They taste so much better than the ones from the supermarket.  Beautifully sweet and juicy and they make your mouth water the minute you bite into them.  And the smell.  Fresh strawberries smell amazing.

What could be better is the photo.  It is not exactly as I imagined and that is even after having adjusted the levels a little to make it look more the colour it should, rather than the grey hue my wee camera was giving it on even the best colour balance.  I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this.  I would much rather get the shot with the camera, but when it is impossible to get the camera to capture what you are seeing, what do you do then?

What's Down There?

Weeding the flowerbeds shows up just how many snails there are hiding in the deep dark depths of the foliage.  I haven't spent a great deal of time watching them before but I did this evening and it is quite amazing how fast they can move and how they get from leaf to leaf and onto flowers.  I would not have expected that flower to hold the weight of the snail either.  I did move it on, but while I was watching it it had the decency not to eat the flowers.  It seemed to be searching for something lower to the ground... are snails afraid of heights?

Good Things Come From Fallen Fruit

We grow tomatoes in the greenhouse each year.  I have never eaten a more beautifully flavoured tomato than those picked off the plant in the greenhouse, still warm and with the smell of the broken stem on your fingers.  Last year we tried a new variety of cherry tomato - a yellow one - that I have forgotten the name of.  It was sweet and juicy and lovely and we didn't see any this year when we were buying the baby plants.  However, my mum was clearing out some old pots and found what I have in my hand in the picture.

No matter how hard you try, you never harvest every single tomato.  There will always be a few fall off the plant, and it's no great loss because there are plenty still growing.  The best thing about it is that, this time, the fallen tomato went unnoticed and stayed at the bottom of a tray all winter.  The yellowy orangey part is the skin of the tomato and, growing inside it are a multitude of little tomato plants, leaves coming out the top of the tomato skin, roots out the bottom.  It's not often you get to see properly how these things work but isn't it lovely to see that that one little tomato from last year has gone on to produce all those lovely little plants.  We can but hope they grow up strong and healthy and give us some fruit this year!