Summer Pickings

It's great when the garden starts producing crops and you can just go and harvest them.  I gathered the first of the gooseberries and raspberries on the same day.  Compared to the subsequent amounts I've been picking these look quite meagre, but they always seem extra tasty when they are the first pickings of the year.

We usually have lots of rhubarb but have hardly had any this year, I cannot remember ever having so little.  I had to resort to buying some to make my favourite jam, 'Raspberry and Rhubarb'. It's a lot less 'pippy' than Raspberry jam and not quite so sweet although you would never know there was rhubarb in it unless you were told. Normally I have to time it right to have enough raspberries but this time it was the rhubarb that was the problem and I could only pick 14 ounces. Having decided I would have to buy some I then couldn't find any in the shops but eventually located some in Waitrose, luckily reduced in price as originally it had been £3.19 for just 400g! 

I think the rhubarb shortage must be due to the lack of rain, and as ours is at the very top of the garden and not in a very accessible place I have to admit that it hasn't been watered as much as it might.  It does get forgotten about, usually until I want some!  Has anyone else had a problem with their rhubarb this year? 

Anyway, I now have six jars of jam waiting for labels.