STRAWBERRIES HAVE MANY USES

On Friday I went to the market, as usual, and was just getting some avocados when I overheard a stall-worker call out to the boss "What shall we do with all these other strawberries?" I was pleased when I heard the answer "Later on we'll sell them for $5 a box". Could I possibly not begin to re-arrange not only my full trolly and 3 carry-bags , but my entire afternoon ? There was barely time for me to draw breath before I heard myself say "If I can have a box of strawberries now for $5, I will take one". The deal was done and the bloke loaded me up with more stuff than a camel could surely carry and I was off home, feeling apprehensively skippity-doo.

The apprehension was due to previous, less than perfect jam-making sessions when, amongst other disasters, I managed to boil the strawberry jam over the pot and all down the cupboard doors and out across the kitchen floor where the dogs were happily licking it up before I realised what was going on ! Another notable and, I thought, successful session ended abruptly a few days later when I realised the plum jam had set so hard that I couldn't even get it out of the jars and had to throw it away - jars and all !This time it went so well except for the fact that I couldn't find my trusty recipe and had to ring my mother for help.

Now it was time to do the washing up and I looked closely at the 15 empty plastic punnets, each with 4 small holes in the top of the sort of hinged lid. Bingo - turn it over and you have a perfect little seed-raising box. So, today, I headed outside to sow some various things I had been meaning to sow lately (I know, the moon's all wrong) and here is the result. It is a perfect solution to the problem of how to have some things in my seed frame covered in plastic and some things covered in cloth, to cater for different stages of growth. With pieces of plastic ice-cream container cut to fit inside the punnets you can happily sow 4 seeds and their roots will be separated from each other. Fiddly for a big job but great for a few seeds of this and that.