tahir
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Strawberries????The missus told me yesterday that Waitrose have stock of Herefordshire strawberries 
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bernie-woman
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Isn't there a huge strawberry farm which grows under polythene in Herefordshire
I remember reading something about Monty Don spearheading an anti campaign as the farm owner wanted to build a huge accommodation complex for his pickers
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thos
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Belgian Wepion strawberries have been in for about a month, but at this time of year they are extremely expensive (€3.95 for 500g)and tasteless (or at least they were two years ago when a neighbour put some in a fruit salad).
Two weeks ago the shop opposite had some Spanish jam strawberries that were lovely and fairly cheap to eat fresh as a treat - a 2Kg box for €4. However, they have now been replaced by 'First Quality' i.e. large and expensive ones, so we'll have to wait for ours.
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Nick
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Yep, much of Herefordshire is under polythene to grow these soft fruits. Don lives up the road, and hates it. He complains it brings foreign workers in and makes the place look unpleasant. The big producer has built a 'temporary' small village of mobile homes to house these workers, who are mainly from Eastern Europe.
Planning for these seems to be OK, or at least they haven't been made to take them down. However, when they erected facilities to help them, such as a pool, doctor's, shower blocks, cinema and a day room type thing, they were forced to be taken down.
Almost none of the buildings can be seen from the surrounding roads and it provides a much needed boost to the rural economy here, *and* means we don't have to fly quite so many strawbs from Israel or Chile. Still, Monty doesn't like it.
Do we have a smiley for sticking two fingers up at NIMBY prats?
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sean
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Don't think we do. But, now that Monty Don's been mentioned, Bugs should be along to be rude about him if that helps.
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Nick
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I think her venom is likely to be a good stand in.
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Penny
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Maybe we should be a bit worried then - here's some before and after shots for Almeria in Southern Spain, near Motril. Beautiul coastline, completely covered for miles and miles and miles in white plastic greenhouses. The picture only shows a tiny part of it. 
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Nick
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If they can't use the land for agricultural purposes, they can go out of work, and destroy what's left of the local economy, and they can sell the land for housing and branches of Curry's.
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mrutty
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| Penny wrote: | | Maybe we should be a bit worried then - here's some before and after shots for Almeria in Southern Spain, near Motril. Beautiul coastline, completely covered for miles and miles and miles in white plastic greenhouses. The picture only shows a tiny part of it. |
See that's why you should buy Spainish Strawberries, we don't want tossers over here ruining our countryside.
Keep Britain Tidy - Leave all your crap in France!
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2steps
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market here has spainish strawberries - £2 a box and some others than were dearer but can't remember how much. co-op has spainish strawberries in as well, I bought some reduced ones yesterday for the cheesecake I made 
my strawberry plants are starting to flower now 
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judith
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Our greengrocer had two punnets of English strawberries for £1 on Saturday. They were OK, but not quite there yet - and nothing like warm, home-grown ones straight from the garden!
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cab
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Got little green protofruit on our plants.
The strawberries at the market aren't calling out to me yet. When they smell good enough so they call you in to the stall, thats when you buy them!
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tahir
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| judith wrote: | | nothing like warm, home-grown ones straight from the garden! |
Why do so many people insist on eating their fruit refrigerated? Never made sense to me.
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judith
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| tahir wrote: | | Why do so many people insist on eating their fruit refrigerated? Never made sense to me. |
Ditto tomatoes. They taste of nothing if refrigerated.
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judith
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| cab wrote: | | The strawberries at the market aren't calling out to me yet. When they smell good enough so they call you in to the stall, thats when you buy them! |
These passed the smell test. Just lacking a bit in flavour.
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JB
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The strawberries on my patio seem to have ground to a halt. Through april they were storming ahead with growth and a few flowers, but now we're in May nothing seems to be happening - a reasonable number of flowers but they've gone back to being dormant.
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Bernie66
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My alpines are pruducing fruit but they seem to have slowed alot too. Might be the sudden drop in temperature gale force winds and heavy rain non stop.........
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Mrs Fiddlesticks
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spotted strawberries in the farm shop today - they were their own. I think they do have a couple of polytunnels, but they do a huge market in PYO so I don't think the Oxfordshire countryside will be decimated by polytunnels.
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gai
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We ate the first from our own polytunnel last week. The outdoor ones have taken a heavy battering from rain, hail, frost & wind over the last week though.
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