I thought I'd try using Liketu to post this, just to see how I get on. If I've understood it right, it's Hive's equivalent of Instagram, so ideal for situations where I've just got one or two photos to share rather than enough to make a full-length post. It's the first time I've used it, so be gentle with me !
A couple of days ago I posted about the very first loganberry to come ripe this year. My wife ate it, and told me it was delicious. So this morning I went out to see how many were ready to be picked, and to get the first batch of whitecurrants.
It turns out I'm going to be battling pigeons and foxes for the loganberries. Not both at the same time.... if they both came out at once, I have a feeling I wouldn't need to worry about missing loganberries any more. But there were still a good couple of dozen I could pick.
The whitecurrants live in a cage I made for them, since we lost all of them to pigeons last year. This year, we've got a bumper crop ! The ones I picked are maybe 20% of what we should get in total, there are plenty more still ripening on the bush. It's not enough to say we're fully self-sufficient, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.
Photo three is the fruit being washed. It's just a precaution, and most of what I skimmed off the top was floating bits of leaves and seeds. I didn't see any bugs (yumyum, added protein !), but at least if there are any they'll be drowned and won't wriggle as we eat them !
The nice thing with both of these is that unlike vegetables and root crops, they are perennials you plant once and then harvest from each year. Half of the loganberries came from a self-seeded one (I guess a pigeon dropped a half-eaten berry), and so far it's still producing loganberry fruit although some of the smaller stems have reverted to having thorns, which was a surprise !
