Strawberries: My Part in their Downfall...

Had I written it the subject would have been my strawberries and how juicy delicious and what an all-round success they had been! Hurrah for me. I had planted them in a basket and although they had some "splitting" around the stork, caused by the extremes of different weather we've experienced this summer, they were big and scrumptiously sweet to eat. Ok they may have been rejected on appearance by the strawberry fascists stocking supermarket shelves, but who cares about that when they're in your own garden? I was hoping to provide you with photographic evidence of this success, but it was a very hectic week; work, childcare issues, and of course the long-weekend in the highlands, and so I didn't manage to get round to it. What follows next my cause one or two of you to shed a tear and could easily be accompanied by some sympathetic orchestral music.

As I strolled into the garden on Monday morning preparing for the live broadcast, my heart sank as I saw the effects of the unusually clement weather we'd enjoyed over the weekend on my strawberries. From big plump ripe for the picking fruit they were now nothing more than red currant-sized dried-up raisins... It was devastating, nearly as devastating in fact as our discovery that our video camera was somewhere between us, Torrance near Glasgow, and Ben Nevis following our wedding trip.

Could things get any worse? Well as a matter of fact they could. My rocket salad had utterly failed to flourish, despite weeks of great care and attention and a test lifting of my red onions, aided admirably by my six-year old daughter Lara, revealed they were still some weeks away from being ready to be worthy of their name. I received no sympathy for my plight and instead had to take the kind of dressing-down I used to get from my headmaster, this time dished-out by a combination of Fred and garden guru Craig Holland. My work's cut out then to get back some credability and rescue my garden from a fate worse than that suffered by my strawberries, so join me next week to see if in fact I have managed to do just that.

I must say on a final note that you'll notice a distinct lack of photos this week and this can be explained in the following ways a) you don't really want to see a grown man with a handful of withered strawberries and a pained-expression on his face and b) my wife has taken the kids and the camera with her to France! I should point out that this was not in protest at my gardening failures, at least I don't think it was. But let's end on an upbeat note: a hopeful call put into the Lochaber Farm shop in the shadow of Ben Nevis revealed that our video camera was safe and well and will be returned to us very shortly. Hurray and happy gardening!