Strawberries

[olive]

Plenty of good tasty strawberries available on markets and in supermarkets. Seems like a glut compared to previous years. ( I wasn’t here this time last year) .

Anyone noticed this or is it my imaginatioon?

[El Cid]

Last years we had loads all year round.

Sid

[Pamela1]

Is that usually the case Sid?, a few years ago i found it hit and miss, the local grocer had them in short supply and he couldn't get them every day.

[El Cid]

It seems to have changed over the last couple of years. The January ones used to be hard with lots of white flesh. They are now more succulent. The summer ones are more like English strawberries, smaller and sweeter.

More are coming in from Morocco and Portugal. Raspberries are more common and cheaper, some with tremendous flavour.

Soon it will be Cherry time. Last years crop was amazing and went on longer than usual. Lovely black fruit where you really could take two bites of the cherry, three even! The early ones can be €10 a kilo but worth it. The good ones stabilise at about €5.

Sid

[Pamela1]

I do recall that the strawberries i did buy while over there were delicious, i almost mentioned raspberries in my post, i have hardly ever seen them but you have answered my silent thoughts. I have some raspberry plants in the garden over there but they never come to much, the fruits are small, probably because they are neglected and i don't know how they should be looked after. We love cherries and you are so lucky to have them in abundance, we planted a few trees about 2-3 yrs ago but they are yet to bare fruit. maybe one day, i'm told the peach trees and almond trees are doing well. Wish i was there.

[El Cid]

Cherries are funny to grow. You have to have different varieties or they will not fruit. Something to do with cross pollination.

Raspberries like a lot of fruit, just do not like the high temperatures. I have also found that tomatoes grow well but tend to get thick skins if grown outside. I am, after 20 years, still struggling with proper runner beans. They grow as in Jack and the Beanstalk, but getting a decent crop isn’t easy as it gets too hot. Peas are worse, I have grown Mange Toute but as soon as the temperature gets over 30 they give up.

The only real success I have had is potatoes. I have been growing Charlotte potatoes, a small early variety, bought in Iceland. Really nice potatoes and so easy to grow and much nicer than the usual Spanish small varieties. Just wait until they start sprouting and shove them into the ground. 3 months later just dig them up!

Just a few weeks to go before our most reliable fruit tree crops - big black Mulberries. A big crop every year without fail.our greengrocer in the local market had not seen them for years. We take her a big box every year. We always get the best produce and service in return!

Sid

[katy]

There has been really good strawberries here from Morocco, now the Spanish have arrived. They are grotesquely huge and hard and white. Probably GM crops.
We always had delicious plumbs from our garden in Spain.

[Pamela1]

Sid maybe that explains why they have not yet had fruit.
I think it's great when you can surprise a Spanish person with your produce which they haven't seen for years, especially in a country where they can produce so much.

[spanish_lad]

I´m surprised that the strawberries in mercadona are so cheap? we paid i think under 2€ for a big plastic box yesterday ?

[markwilding]

There has been really good strawberries here from Morocco, now the Spanish have arrived. They are grotesquely huge and hard and white. Probably GM crops.
We always had delicious plumbs from our garden in Spain.

You get used to them, When I first lived here, I used to much prefer the sweeter UK ones but now I really like the Spanish ones, Sometimes I cut them up and mix them with a banana but my favourite is with a little chocolate ice cream and even better, occasionally, I chuck a pot of thick Oikos strawberry yogurt over the strawberries and ice cream.

[Wicksey]

We bought a strawberry plant this year but it's not produced much. I tend to avoid the early strawberries in the shops here as they have been as Sid describes, hard and white and pretty tasteless, but will try some now as it seems they are better. I think the raspberries we've been buying here come from Portugal or northern Spain. I don't remember seeing them so much in the past but they're always available now in the supermarkets.

We've given up growing anything here as we just don't seem to be very greenfingered when it comes to veg. The summers are just too hot and fry everything. We have neighbours that grow crops so a few times a year we are inundated with huge bag of tomatoes, cucumbers or courgettes.I have to be prepared to process them, roasting and freezing the tomatoes, making relish out of the cucumbers and ratatouille from the courgettes. When in season the fruit and veg is generally cheap in the local greengrocers so it's hardly worth the effort of trying to get anything to grow in our garden.

[katy]

There has been really good strawberries here from Morocco, now the Spanish have arrived. They are grotesquely huge and hard and white. Probably GM crops.
We always had delicious plumbs from our garden in Spain.

You get used to them, When I first lived here, I used to much prefer the sweeter UK ones but now I really like the Spanish ones, Sometimes I cut them up and mix them with a banana but my favourite is with a little chocolate ice cream and even better, occasionally, I chuck a pot of thick Oikos strawberry yogurt over the strawberries and ice cream.

Maybe we are receiving different ones. These are about 6cm long and at least that wide. Couldn’t fit them into meringue nests or top a gateaux etc. Saw a few people pick them up and put them back.
Some British ones have arrived in Waitrose and Aldi but has been cold last 7 days.

[markwilding]

They are bigger so I cut them up into smaller pieces. They are nowhere near as sweet but that's what I like especially when mixed with other sweet things. However, they can be an acquired taste so if you only eat them now and again, you might not get a taste for them.

Years ago, we used to pop into those pick your own places which if I remember rightly were in and around where you live, You could eat as many as you bought as they were being picked. I certainly wouldn't be able to eat so many Spanish ones in one session.

[Wicksey]

We used to go to our local pick your own farm in the UK Mark. It used to be lovely sitting amongst the strawberry plants listening to the skylarks.

If the fruit's not very sweet I make a smoothie. Whizzing up strawberries, hazelnut milk (I don't like milk) and ice-cream with perhaps some banana or dates.

When we lived in France we had fantastic cherry trees. Huge black cherries on the earlier crop and the paler smaller ones on the later tree to ripen. We had cold winters and hot summers there which I think they liked. I do miss those. We had a lovely apricot tree when we first moved to this house but it died a few years later, ditto our avocado .... that's the effect we have on our fruit and veg here it seems.

[katy]

I like this size.

http://www.fruitnet.com/fpj/article/184 ... ve-in-aldi

[ashtondav]

Sadly the birds got 50% of our cherries. But the other 50% were delicious.

[luckyjim]

That’s what I love about living here. Never ate a tremendous amount of fruit in UK, but here I always have a great big bowl of mixed fruit in the fridge and it changes all the time. Also when the bigger soft fruit is in, plums, nectarines, peaches, stew a lot and store them in the freezer .

[Wicksey]

I always try to eat what is in season, so look forward to the strawberries coming out. I refuse to buy avocados from Peru when we are surrounded by trees. I have just bought some strawberries and raspberries from Lidl, the strawberries only 85c a small punnet. I shall try them tomorrow as I already have a rhubarb and apple Eve's pud to finish tonight