Rustic Fruit Cage Success

At home, the pea harvest from the compact rainwater irrigated raised bed is going very well. The pea plants are now taller than my children and covered with fresh fat pods; they taste best raw.

However, after a short spell of sunny weather, I thought it was high time I popped down to our shared allotment to check on the progress of the soft fruit in our coppiced hazel cage.

What a lovely surprise greeted me!

All of the Autumnal Raspberries and the Tayberry had shot up. The Summer Raspberries were full of scrumptious ripe fruit.

Strawberry plants were planning to take over the entire floor-space / or possibly the world.

My Blueberry bush was resplendent with a great many bloomy ripe berries, which I hastily picked/ate.

The Squash plants were outside the safety of the cage; they had such a hard time getting started because of the invading slug army. Now they seemed to have finally got a grip and were happily seething all over the plot with gay abandon.

I returned home victorious and contented, with a small Tupperware box of the remaining Blueberries and Raspberries (the ones that I had not scoffed); guiltily licking the smeared juice off my lips before reaching the front door.

Strawberry Tree Tease

While foraging around with my boy for things to make Christmas decorations out of, we spotted some strange small red fruits on the ground. They looked halfway between lychees and painted plain tree seed balls. Closer inspection revealed that they were very soft and ripe, it took no effort at all to break them open and inside they were filled with a soft, bright orange pulp.

The tree that they had fallen from still had some fruits dangling like baubles, I remembered reading somewhere that there were strawberry trees in the area and guessed that this might be what we had found.

We saw the house owner in the front garden and asked, she confirmed that it was indeed a Strawberry tree and that the fruits were edible; although she didn’t like them at all. Then, she very kindly invited us in to her back garden to see the tree.

I picked a couple of the fruits off the ground and took them home. We all tried the soft exotic looking fruits; I thought that the orange pulp tasted vaguely of citrus, with chewy seeds. They were very bland though and didn’t taste very much of anything. According to Grandma, there is also a tree in the car park of Fryern Arcade (Chandlers Ford).

All in all, I was excited about discovering and identifying the mythical strawberry tree; the beautiful fruits look totally spectacular but this tree is just a tease and the taste of its fruit is something of an anticlimax. I would eat one again but only if I was so hungry that I couldn’t walk to the shops.

It's a pity we couldn't use them as Christmas baubles.