Miles of strawberries

So far I have managed to freeze about 10kg of strawberries, 2 kg went into jam. Os asked me to make some strawberry jam to taste (he doesn't eat shop bought jam anymore).

Boiling jars and lids.

And strawberries - I use jam sugar with some pectin. It'll keep at least a year, but I think this one will not see next summer...

I was away for three days driving along smallest of small country roads trying to find berry farms, and two days again this week. I have seen ostriches, lambs, the most huge orpington cockerel, bunnies and miles after miles of rows of strawberries (and Ukrainian berry pickers). Blueberries are not in season yet, and raspberries are ripe only in tunnels. lasti week I drove 500 miles, and in the end of day three I thought I wouldn't walk five hundred miles more... This week only 300miles.

And this wasn't the narrowest road I drove...

Next summer I really hope I don't have to do those tours, they are exhausting. (I do this as part of my work, not to get berries)

Kids have been eating handful of our own strawberries almost daily, they say they are far more better than bought ones.

Most of firewood is cut and split and stacked in storage for the winter. There is s small(ish) pile of cut and split wood in the field, it's still wet and have to be stacked somewhere to dry. There is also 8 stacks of dry and split wood which is still 1m long, so it needs to be cut. Kids hate me, because they have been stacking wood for three weeks now...

These 5 piles need to be cut, and we have three more piles like these to be cut as well. 'Suma found a new playground.

Veg path and polytunnel as well as greenhouse survived my being away. D had watered them just fine, not too much and not too little. Of course because we had very cold weather so there was no need to water anything much. There was even frosts at night a bit north from us, luckily we have had +5C or +6C nights. If I had basil, it would have suffered.
Well, now we have Saharan heat wave coming. Talk about u-turn.

I found first flowers in tomatoes -  I know, most people are already eating their tomatoes. I also have nice flowers in my melons, watermelon is a bit behind now. Cucamelon is also flowering.

This is  melon, do I really need to pollinate them by myself?

 We ate first potatoes a week ago, with pickled herring, chanterelles (from pur own forest), fried eggs and roasted vegetables. Kids were not impressed with violet potatoes, to me they were ok. We do have normal white/yellow potatoes, so kids will not be starving this summer. But those potatoes are really dark, deep purple.

Violet Queens and some unidentified white potatoes.

They are spuds even if they look like black beets. They even bleed blue.

Today I'm going to pick some more chanterelles, as well other mushrooms I'll find. Os will eat them happily, and I noticed last weekend all children eating them (fried in butter). Even ys, who has been refusing 'shrooms lately.

I weeded under my black currant bushes, they are not quite ripe yet, but soon. Noighbours white currants are ripe, asn well as reds. I might pick some tomorrow, I have room in freezer. Pity there's no lingon berries coming this year, I saw no flowers in spring and therefore no berries... Kids like them in smoothies.

Is this a hazelnut?

Carrots my ow (I have purple too, but they are tiny), saskatoon (serviceberry) I bought from a berry farm to taste. Ok.

I have two weeks off again, I have a list of tasks in my mind I'd like to complete:
-plant cherries (bought in early June?)
-weed veggie path
-feed kids carrots from cold frames
-start using beets from frames
-harvest Belgian garlic from both frames
-eat potatoes from bags (I still have 13 growing bags of potatoes)
-forage mushrooms
-find some more strawberries to make more jam (to say it was a succes is a bit understatement)
-take sys and ys to adventure park
-move cut and split wood from field to forest (there's pallets waiting them to be stacked)
-have a little day trip with my sister.

I had to come inside, because there's too hot for black dog like 'Suma. Now she's been sleeping an hour so we can go back outside, this time to pick mushrooms I found yesterday while at 'Sumawalk.