Fruity times.

Wow, another scorcher and another sweat-busting day. I love it when I can spend a whole day in the garden (once our Sunday tea and cake treat is over). The chickens love it too because they are allowed to roam freely in ours and Jack's garden the entire day. We were rewarded with one single egg (the first for a fortnight) from Shakira who is also moulting. Whilst Luke sprained his wrist carrying a load of marble tiles I ended up with a very achy back after lifting heavy pots. What a couple of crocks.

We did manage to work all day though and very satisfying it was too.

Luke spent most of the day concreting in the upright posts for the fence; it's really starting to take shape now. Okay, so we still only have the posts in but the fourteen holes had to be dug out, no easy task with the huge stones that cripple the spade work and great quantities of sand and cement have had to be mixed. Hopefully the next jobs will be that much easier – lengths of 2 by 3 horizontal struts screwed into the fence posts before featherboard is overlaid to create a great length of fence which we'll then paint.

Today was also the last day we could clear out the allotment plot we have long given up. Our friend, Tim, had kept it on but left it to literally go to seed with his own commitments preventing him from visiting often enough. We found that our raspberries had all been pinched as well as the greenhouse dismantled and moved! What a ruddy cheek! If they'd ask, we'd have happily let them take stuff but I'm not very impressed with it being stripped. We managed to salvage an enormous red currant which seemed like a sensible idea before we realised how huge it was (we'd have been better off buying a young plant) but by then we'd already disturbed it's root system so we carried on. Once we got it home I hard pruned it (such a bad time to move it but we had no choice so I tried to limit the work the plant would have to do by taking away some of it's bulk. Hopefully now it will put it's energy into the remaining branches. It had filled the entire back seat of the car when we brought it home but now it looks quite manageable. I also had to tease away the weeds from the root system as it had mare's tail and other weeds growing through it. I dug a huge hole but had to decent compost or sharp sand to condition the soil but I am pretty sure that most berries don't need great soil to grow well (just look at blackberries that spring up at the side of railway tracks). Of course I watered the hole, planted the redcurrant, watered the ground and kept the hose on it for a good ten minutes. Very early days but so far so good.

We also took just one of Luke's premium blackberry plants to train against the fence once it's built.

I'd planted it up before Luke saw it and told me I was too far away from where the actual fence will be so I dug it up and replanted it about five inches closer to where the fence will go. Sadly though, the ground was sodden by then because I had well watered it in to it's original hole so it was rather boggy and my feet seemed to weigh twice their normal weight with all the compacted mud stuck to my shoes as I walked across the ground. We've decided that along the fence will run our fruit garden. We've already got thirteen raspberry canes which have been stripped of their ruby fruit by the chickens up to the point they can reach and also lots of anaemic berries at the top waiting to ripen. The wild birds may beat us to them but we can net them up if need be. Having seen a small bird caught in netting before now I am loath to use netting but I'll reserve judgement till I see how many raspberries are swiped by the beaks!

At the end of the raspberries (they begin just down from the vegetable patch) will be a rhubarb (I dug one up out of the three at the allotment but am not sure the crown is very healthy as I didn't get it out in one piece). If it doesn't recover I will buy another one when it's time to do so.

Next along the line are the strawberries which till now have lived in a strawberry pot but never had much of a chance as they dried out too often. The hens love the strawberries, in fact they nicked most of the alpine strawberries from the mini barrels they'd been planted in. However, we will cover them up with some protection and of course, surround them with straw next summer to keep the berries off the ground and away from slugs and snails. Behind the strawberries is the premium blackberry which will be trained up the fence and then at the end of the bed is the newly liberated redcurrant. I will keep you informed how it does.