Tuesday morning was dull and damp with a little bit of rain but the afternoon brightened up with even a few short sunny spells. It remained mild.
Over the weekend the grass paths on the allotment had been mowed but the grass under the fruit trees had been left uncut. As we've a few spring flowers under the fruit trees the grass gets left uncut to allow the flowers to die back naturally. It was now time for a tidy up.
The long grass hadn’t dried out and there was still plenty of moisture left which created a fine mist as the strimmer wire cut through the long grass. Our plum trees still haven’t leafed up properly following the early spring attack from aphids. I’m hoping the plums still left on the tree will make it through to maturity.
We also decided it was about time to net our strawberry bed. The first few fruits are just beginning to turn red which is sure to attract the attention of the birds.
There were four fruits ready for picking. It seemed such a shame to leave them as it’s so much easier to pick them before the net goes over. It turned out that there were just three ripe strawberries for us to share as one had been eaten by slugs who kindly left a lovely red fruit on display that was almost totally eaten away inside.
Before we left for home the strawberries had been netted to protect them from the birds but if this damp weather persists we might loose a lot more fruits to the slugs and snails.
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One of my apple trees is under major aphid attack. I would usually spray a little diluted Ecover washing up liquid on it, but this one's over the pond, so that's not something I want to do. So annoying when slugs take the good strawberries. I always imagine the noise of them slurping out the insides of a strawberry, with their heads (and sometimes whole bodies) in there. It must be a happy moment in the life of a slug.
ReplyDeleteIt's a short lived high for any slug I find in one of our strawberries!
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