The Somerset Levels

These photographs were taken on my first visit two years ago and ever since I have longed to return. That’s currently out of the question with miles of land under deep water but I regularly look at these images and I hope that it will return one day to this exquisite natural wetland.

I can’t say I have any desire to visit the allotment at the moment but a delivery of strawberry plants arrived this morning so needs must and  I’ll plant them tomorrow. I prepared a new bed in November since my strawberries were about six years old and I’ve had a poor crop two years running. I chose ‘Finesse’ which was bred by the research centre at East Malling and it’s described  as high yielding with a superb flavour. The berries are heart-shaped, bright red, firm and juicy and produce up to 1.2kg of fruit on long trusses. It also produces very few energy-sapping runners. 

I didn’t get round to planting broad beans in the ground last November but these I sowed two weeks ago in the heated propagator. They came through fast and are now in an unheated propagator indoors where they will stay till I plant them out at the beginning of March.