Pick Your Own

Summer Berries 

On a sunny day when my mum was up visiting we decided to go pick our own fruit.  There are a few places around us which do PYO but Carnie Farm seemed to offer the best variety of fruits. Plus I knew where it was!

We had recently been to Carnie fruit farm with out nieces for the kids play stuff so I knew that the strawberries were definitely ready.  There is no entry fee for picking the fruit but you pay for the fruit you want to take away.

Childhood memories

When mum heard there was gooseberries she got very excited.  She said it instantly took her back to her childhood.  She recalled a neighbour had a gooseberry bush & that her & all my aunts & uncles would go picking every year, eating & picking until the bush was empty, but she couldn't remember the last time she had had a gooseberry.  I am saddened to admit that I had never even tried a gooseberry! & if i'm honest I wasn't even sure what they looked like!!

Pick of the Crop

The girl at the info desk gave us the inside info on where to get the biggest juiciest berries & we set off down the rows of bushes.

Mum informed me I was looking for a big juicy loot of plump green berries.  For this of you who don't know, gooseberries tend to be found lower down, deep in the middle of the bush.  The thorny bush.  Cue me getting scratched!  But boy did mum think they were worth the scratches & searching as she filled the basket with glee.

Let's just say more than a few didn't make it into the basket.

Bountiful Berries

Next the raspberries, perthshire is famous for the rasps but they just weren't quite ready & you really had to search for any ripe ones.  Too much like hard work so we quickly moved on to the strawberries. Again the staff pointed us in the right direction of the fullest fruit.

The gooseberry bushes had been rather empty & we had our pick of the fruit - the strawberry rows however were filled with families.  It was lovely to see kids getting excited over finding a big ripe strawberry.

So in between the kids, me & mum set about filling our basket.  Now the trick is to hold the full fruit & pick the stem to keep the fruit fresh for home & prevent bruising.  However there were a lot of strawberries that fell off so no stack, so in order to prevent them going mushy we kindly ate them!  Any that were too ripe/bruised or just looked so damn delicious were rescued from the basket.

So it wasn't long till our fingers were red & the basket was full.

We payed for our fruit, which I thought was very reasonably prices for such fresh delicious & organic fruit.  Then we took a rummage through the shop ending up in the cafe.

Gooseberry Goodies

I got my mum Gooseberry Jam as a souvenir of her trip, she also kept dropping not to subtle hints when we got home that she would love gooseberry crumble.  Crumble is so easy to make, it just had to be done!

Flour, butter, sugar & desiccated coconut for the crumble topping, bung it in the oven & voila bubbling gooseberry goodness.

Having never had gooseberries before, I did enjoy it but not really my thing.  It reminds me of rhubarb & the way it makes your eyes wince & mouth water is a bit weird, I don't like tart things.  Plus before cooking they are hairy!

It was a fab day out & I loved the fresh fruit, a good family local activity.

Have you ever picked your own fruit?

Any great gooseberry / strawberry recipes?