The heat is on, temperatures have soared well over 30 for many days (and over 40 for a couple!) making gardening a morning task only. But while the weeding remains chore number one collecting raspberries with the sun on your back is not. The so-called summer raspberries are coming to an end although I’m still getting a large handful most days. The birds also appreciate them, huge locusts like a nibble too and the hens go mad for the manky ones I throw them. Most of them are frozen, they still make excellent jam. We’ve had them with our porridge, Sunday pancakes and with yoghurt. My favourite though, just nudging out raspberry ripple, is clafoutis, a simple French recipe that I look forward to making each summer.

Luckily, we also have autumn raspberries and we’ll be having those in the not too distant future. Fairly fuss-free, reliable and spreading each year they are the perfect soft fruit to grow.

Our first flush of strawberries have come and gone although the later lot are tastier. And this year another good crop of gooseberries. We bought a small bush from a stall at a local monthly market quite a few years ago now. Only after harvesting the first lot did I do the research – there are dessert gooseberries and cooking gooseberries; the former sweeter and can be eaten from the bush, the latter more sour. Well, it seems we have the dessert ones which is just fine. I like making a sweet goosegog relish to go with our barbecued mackerel but this year most ended up as gooseberry and elderflower jam.

The redcurrants, after being fantastic last year, were disappointing but we still have the blackcurrants to come. I managed to propagate some baby bushes from last year’s pruning. So now we’re waiting for the big one: the plum harvest. Meanwhile I bottled some peaches from fruit growing over the wall (yes, I stole them from our neighbour’s tree) but that was How a Small Task turned into a Big Faff and is a story for another time…