Carrots,weeds and Strawberries

The Carrot bed is full but of what?
Many of the grass like seedlings actually might just be grass after all.
I weeded and weeded and now there are a few actual positive sightings of carrot tops but most of it looks like little grasses.
However on pulling one up,there is a distinctive carroty niff so I replanted it and have left well alone.

The strawberries are finished fruiting and I am hard at work weeding the grass,Nettles and creeping buttercup out .
The two beds are crowded but they are beginning to take up some semblance of a strawberry patch as opposed to a miniature jungle.
Many snail and ant eggs are uncovered along with their parents.

I have sown clover in two of the onion beds and phacelia in the other.
These are green manures to improve the soil.
The clover is already up .
Amongst the Strawberries, I found several vetch seed pods and collected a few as they are supposed to be useful also as green manure.


Last week I bought a berry picking tool.
It looks like a Dustpan but the bottom is a comb rather than solid.
To use it ,you have to sort of scoop at the berries which become caught in the comb and drop into the pan.
It is an ingenious contraption, simple and effective.
I remember Ray Mears featuring a similar tool in one of his episodes.
It has sped up the berry harvesting by about 90% as previously I could spend an hour an evening on just harvesting raspberries and red currants.

My poor Berries are very crowded with weeds and will get a proper clear out once they have finished fruiting.
The Cleavers,Rogue Blackberry brambles and Bear Bind are everywhere.

On the harvesting side...
We have had quite a few courgettes and a few French beans and even one or two runners today.
There aren't many peas but they are lovely when we have had any.

Today was spent in weeding  the strawbs and in hunting indoors for DS'  document folder in which he had put all his qualification details and then mislaid the whole lot.
I found it .
The rain has been persistent.
There is fruit on the tomatoes but I don't know if they will ripen with so little sunshine.

We cheered ourselves up with pork chops and chips for tea.
The chops were courtesy of Lidls who were selling them half price this week.
The green veg was all from the garden which is satisfying.