The very first flash of red was noticed amongst the leaves and flowers, the strawberries are coming…
(c) MKW Publishing
First Strawberry 2025
strawberries
It’s going a bit red 🍓
Growing season is now in full swing 😍
(c) K Wicks
Berries of 2022
A nice little haul of wild strawberries today, with a couple of blueberries and a domestic strawb. 😋
(c) K Wicks
Chocolate strawberries 🍓
A spur of the moment purchase of strawberries and a bar of chocolate in the cupboard, combined for a very tasty indulgence. A couple with desiccated coconut and a couple with grated white chocolate. Just to make it a bit more special for a Tuesday night treat.
(c) K Wicks
Foraging for berries in the garden
Yesterday was my first proper forage of the year. I thought it might be nice to film it, so you can see how you can get a good yield from just a small bush or area. I have 3 planter boxes about 2 meters long and a foot wide, with two small patches of ground for flowers and things too. The boxes have a lot going on with potatoes, herbs, poppies, jasmine and wild strawberries.
I bought 3 extra small planters about 2 ft square to put on the concrete outside the house, to make the most of that sunny patch and get as much on the go as I can for the insects and spiders to make their home in. Mostly flowers but I moved the goosebery bush in Spring as last year it had no berries. Must have been a good move as there are loads this year.
Ended up with a rather good bounty for the first sweep 😁
The birds don’t seem to help themselves to any of the fruit, but they have plenty of insects and bird food to keep them busy so far. I don’t mind sharing though, in fact my dog likes strawberries so as I pick them i have to share as I go!
(c) K Wicks
Strawberries
With letting everything just grow, you get to see what things do given the chance. Strawberries will grow and spread and are very efficient at this. And because they are so pretty, attract lots of bugs and have fruit at the end of it, why wouldn’t you let them. I may regret saying that when they fully take over, but I will scale some plants back a bit now to make light and room for others.
This box has all sorts going on in it, winter jasmine, parsley, rosemary and lots of trailing wild strawberries. I added a few poppies where they were getting crowded in my planters, and it rusn out the potatoes I grew in this box last year hadn’t all been dug up. So I have potatoes in both boxes now.
It seems I did have a pink strawberry flower plant left going amongst the others. These flowers only lasted a couple of days before they were munched!
The berries have begun to ripen 🙂
(c) K Wicks
Strawberry patches
I bought two strawberry plants a couple of years ago. One with white flowers, one with red flowers. I didn’t realise the red one was just ornamental, or must be as no strawberries on it last year. And so far this year, no red flowers on it either. Maybe the other one took over, as per the picture further down.
These are three different patches of strawberries now flowering. If you didn’t know, strawberries spread, going as far as you let them.
One box now has them all the way along. And, although I didn’t plant any potatoes in this one this year, we have potatoes coming up! I guess I didn’t find all of last years and they’re coming back. Funny because I’ve planted potatoes in the next bed along this year.
At the end of the strawberry box, we also have a mingled corner with rosemary, parsley and winter jasmine.
Lots of green at the moment in the garden with small spots of colour coming through. Another couple of months and I am expecting a lot of colour 🙂 One of last years strawberries below, so I’m hopeful of at least a few more this year!
(c) K Wicks
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