Strawberries Knacked

[Stacey Steve]

Just got back from the plots and all the rest of my strawberries have either been eaten by slugs or just turned to mush.

All this wet weather and quick warm spells have put paid to them.

Will go back later and strip everything, even the imature fruits and hope the next lot of flowers that are appearing set.

[SarzWix]

I spent a few hours at a fruit farm the other day, getting strawbs for jam. The poor farmer was so happy to see me turn up he had tears in his eyes. I could see why once I started picking - the quantity of fruit rotted/rotting on the plants was enough to make me get tears in my eyes Not only the strawberries either, he had rows and rows of blackcurrant bushes dropping ripe fruit all over the place too. He said that if the weather is wet, best to pick the strawbs when just pink, lay on kitchen paper & let them dry & ripen indoors. You're no worse off than buying artificially ripened supermarket fruit & your crop shouldn't turn to mush.

[BarleySugar]

A few weeks ago we read an article in the local paper, and heard it on the news, that due to the lack of immigrant workers available this year, the strawberries would rot in the fields. My son, coming home from uni for only 6 weeks, thought fruit picking would earn him some money, they said a good picker could earn £9 per hour, but £6 was pretty guarenteed. He contacted farms round about, saying he was willing to live in the accomodation they said was available or camp for those farms that said this was all that was available. No one wanted him, one even said he wouldn't be able to hack it, as he was a uni student, and wouldn't put up with the conditions.
It was really annoying, they say people in this country won't take these sorts of jobs, but they won't give them a chance to have a go. I used to do all sorts of field work for my father, weeding, fruit picking, planting spuds, gathering them in, washing leeks in the middle of winter, turkey plucking etc.
I don't know what they've done about getting the fruit picked, maybe they weren't as short of pickers as they said they were.
I know that 'pick your own' farms are different, as they rely on people coming to them, which they won't when it is tipping it down For these people a poor summer is a disaster.