Cherries, hazelnuts, peas, zucchinis, basil & strawberries

I love this time of year.  We eat so much delicious fruit!

We have picked all of the cherries from the 2 main fruiting trees.  As always, one variety is tastier than the other, but both are fantastic!

Tree 1 – ready 1 week earlier than the delicious ones below.
Tree 2 – the fruit are actually a deeper purple colour than they look in this photo.
They are huge and juicy!

I finally roasted the remains of a sack of hazelnuts and the children have been shelling them.  A handful of hazelnuts and a bowlful of cherries go very well together!

The peas and zucchinis are bearing quite heavily at the moment.

Shellout peas and snow peas

The strawberry harvest is beginning to taper off.

And we have an excess of basil.  But I have found that the leaves freeze very well.  Simply pick the leaves from the stalk and place them in a freezer bag.  When you want some to cook with, open the bag and remove as many leaves as you require.  Preserving doesn’t get any easier than that!

Ready to freeze….