FARMING MATTERS: Strawberries on the menu

The great British strawberry has become synonymous with summer and these succulent, juicy, bright fruits are as beautiful as they are tasty.

And for once something that tastes gorgeous is also good for us! Just nine strawberries gives us 100% of our recommended daily allowance of vitamin C.

Home grown strawberries do tend to taste particularly good and I can’t wait to eat the ones my husband is growing in his vegetable patch over at the farmyard. They are so delicious I don’t even add sugar, cream or ice cream, and often they don’t even make it to a bowl, they just get rinsed under the tap and then eaten straight away one by one!

Here in Buckinghamshire strawberries are grown commercially, and pick your own farms provide a lovely opportunity for families to go out and collect their own punnets.

Peter Shaw, manager of Copas Farms Pick Your Own in Iver and Cookham, said: “This year our customers will find picking a whole lot easier with the introduction of table top strawberry beds, some of which are under cover.”