More shady business and some Apricots

Last year along with almost everything else in the garden my blackberries and rhubarb copped a flogging from the heat. They are in a bad spot though. Being on the western side of the block, up against an iron fence they get the full force of the sun for the best part of the day, so it's to be expected they would suffer. Since I had a bit of poly pipe and some shade cloth left over from the veggie shade house, I have built another one to make sure my rhubarb and blackberry pies are up to scratch. The same construction method as before but as this is only a half hoop I made up some tube holders that have been welded to the top rail of the fence. The poly is simply screwed into them and forms the peak of the hoop. The difference this bit of extra shade has made is noticeable so I'm looking forward to a good batch of berries this year.

In other garden news, we have put down a supply of apricots for the off season. Although I don't have a tree myself, my mate Bill does. He inherited it when he brought his house, and for a supply of apricot jam has kept us in fruit for the last few years.

As well as jam there was enough for 15 blocks of stewed fruit to go with my ice cream.

For this job we use recycled fast food containers (every once in a while we lash out and dig into a bit of Chinese food from the local takeaway). These things are just the job for freezer packs as they stack nicely and don't take up too much room in the freezer. Easy to label and just enough for a meal or two. If we run out of containers we simply turn them out into bags and keep them as ice blocks