All In A Days' Work

This weekend has been a good one for gardening here. Saturday was purely for cleaning of the flower garden and schoffeling of the new garden. Sunday was another thing entirely.

Brfore I get into some of sunday's activities, let me just show you a couple of flower pics:
This richly-coloured Malva started shoeing colour at the edge of the main patio.

In one of the front plots the Knautia macedonica has it's first bloom. I like these because of their colour and that they bloom all summer long (even without deadheading).

In the back part of the flower garden near the shady plot, I have a Philadelphus situated This is the "Frosty Morn". It isn't really growing very fast, but it is producing some lovely double flower blooms

Along the outside of the fencing enclosure I have let some wild poppies grow in peace before I finish cleaning the front bit.

It looks a bit messy in a way, but I do love those passionately red beauties. When I looked closer, I noticed some interesting varients:

...and for a closer look this solitary red 'n white. Isn't it a pretty thing?

Over in the new garden, I see the Kapucijners are beginning to bloom. They have grown chest high already and had to be tied-in again yesterday.

I harvested a load of peas yesterday and a trug-full of strawberries.
We combined them all in the trug, but kept the "Polka" separate for use with the jam only...the others we will eat fresh and of course jam as well.
The strawbs looked so numerous and beautiful in their plot, but a camera just simply couldn't show them as one sees them with th naked eye. Be that as it may, here is what one plant looks like. I have well over 100 plants, so you get an idea of what it looks like this year.


Around seven o 'clock in the evening it started raining and so we finished packing-in and decided to call it a day...after all there was work to be done at home.
Once home we floped all the stuff down and piled all the ingredients onto the little table and started making preparations.

These would not make it into the jam cauldron. Oh no....they will be for personal consumption. Strawberry shortcake with whipped cream.

They were some of the prettiest and ripest of the lot. mmmmmmmmm

Ok. Well, those were for later as we sat in front of the telly watching the final episode of "the Apprentice".

We stood for almost an hour cleaning the strawbs--removing the stems and greenery, bad spots and quartering them.
Finally it was time to mix the pectin-sugar and boil. I tell you, it was like torture trying not to eat as I cleaned.
There was 2.2 kilos of these red jewels in that pot (clean). *I think that there are about 2.2 pounds to a kilo.

The end result was eleven jars of jam which required constant turning to try and get the strawberry bits to be evenlly dispursed. Here you can tell that the jam is still quite hot.

That added to the six jars that we made last week brings us up to 17 jars in the cupboard. Not too bad so far, but the end of the strawbs is not in sight and then there is an over abundance of plums and blueberries yet to come. I don't know where I shall find the time...or SPACE for it all.

It had been a long and busy day with cleaning, crop care harvesting, giving water and finally jamming til into the night--but what a feeling of satisfaction. We could sit and watch the telly with our minds on 'zero', our attention being occasionally broken by the intermittent 'tink" of a top sucking-in out in the kitchen.
As we looked back, it didn't seem hard and we just sort of thought is was all in a days' work. The season has only begun, but begun it has!

 

What amazing pictures! and the strawberries look so yummy. All your hard work is paying off big time! Keep the gorgeous pictures coming!

 

Lovely photos! I like the strawberries best. Those poppies of yours are lovely, I can full well understand why you leave them be.

 

Thank you folks very much for your nice comments.
I know what you mean, Eileen--those poppies really are something different.. I think that when they finish blooming I shall shake the seeds out and onto the ground where they are growing. Hopefully next year there will be more. I may also save a few aside and store to offer friends and use myself to plant at another spot in the garden.

You had better get those Knautia seeds planted Toni...the summer is almost here already.
Good luck with that jam. It's going to be delicious.

I wish that I could describe the taste of those strawbs, Droopy. They taste really good., and some are a bit aeromatic as well.
The smell just hooks you--know what I mean? You smell them from a distance and then one must be very strong not to go to the patch, rip off the protective net and start gobbling with both hands.

 

Your photos are making me drool!!! Our strawberries are so far behind this year due to the below average temps. Looks wonderful.

 

We are having below average temps too Kaseylib. I sure hope it warms up soon.
Sjoerd, your photos are wonderful as always. You are really teasing me with your double Philadelphus blooms! The Poppy's are stunning and so is the Malva. I can hardly wait for fresh strawberry's now

 

Our strawberry's here will be late. They were just telling on our news tonight because of rain and some frost with little sunshine to ripen the berry's they will be ripeing a few weeks later this year. Your jam looks mmmm delicious. Those poppies too are colorful and pretty.

 

Thanks, KL, Netty 'n Petunia. You guys are too nice.
I am really sorry to hear that you guys will have to wait so long for strawbs. That weather is so unpredictable each year now.
Well I shall be eagerly awaiting pics of your harvests. I hope that it won't be too much longer.

 

Those are grand photos of the flowers, and I dare say mouthwatering photos of the harvest from your garden. There'll no doubt be some good dining from that bath of jam.
Tom

 

Thanks Tom. The hardest part of growing strawberries is to not eat them fresh when jamming.
We grow them to put-up for consumption throughout the year, but when you're standing there cleaning them and your fingers atr wet with the juicem and your nostrils are full of that wonderful aroma...and of course the simple visual effect of those shiney, red fruits are just lying there and there seems so many....it is all I can do to stay concentrated upon the true goal and not just cave-in and eat myself sick on them.
I was telling a collegue at work about the canning process and the temptation. he just said with a straight face, "...a tribulation I would gladly shoulder, should you find it all too taxing". (( ))