Blackberries are wild in Spain, but are shite. Wild blackberries in the UK aren't all that to write home about either. Some are good, but a high % of bushes growing wild are tasteless. They certainly were in Cambridgeshire.

I have to agree with you but as a generalisation strawberries do seem to be tastier in GB. Just up the road from us in Sussex was a pick your own farm, every year we would look forward to the picking season and then pig out. Then a couple of years before we left it all went haywire the strawberries were not ripe/overipe/mushy no perfect in between and to make matters worse the farmer was charging ridiculous prices for them. Shame really.

Graham.

You could only make such a statement if you have visited and sampled them in all areas of Spain.
As I said climate and conditions are totally different in the N.W. compared to the S.E.
Much the same applies to the UK.
Just because they are sh!te in Cambridge, I can assure you that certainly doesn't apply to all the UK.
Regarding strawberries some of the best I have ever tasted grow wild near my place in Sweden, much smaller than the cultivated varieties but absolutely delicious.

You are of course absolutely right. Until I have tried every single bush in Spain I won't know that there isn't a great one round the corner.

At least I can say that all the ones I have seen here have been so sh'ite that I wouldn't insult my mouth by trying one.

There are some good ones about in Cambridgeshire, of course, but in the last couple of years I was there driving round, every bush I tried was second rate at best. The only good one was against a customer's garden, it was excellent, and was to me clearly an escaped cultivar. It reactivated my interest in them, only to have it once more crushed.

Er, no bil, I'm not suggesting you try every blackberry bush in Spain, only that they are likely very different in different areas,depending on climate and soil, as is apparently the case in the UK.


Now for some very fruity facts about Spanish strawberries.

http://www.theolivepress.es/spain-ne...ess-and-light/

Apparently the locals find the pickers much more tasty than the actual fruit, however the Japs seem to have the job well sussed.

I think you are mixing genetically modified with selective breeding. They are two separate processes.

We are growing our own and have been picking them now for 2 weeks - very nice and red all the way through!

I don't know, just heard it on radio and was a member of ecologistas en acción. He spoke of "transgenicos". More worrying was the heavy use of pesticides.

The problem is that far too few people have any scientific training, even less understand how one accurately assesses risk, and a vanishing few have the ability to apply critical reasoning.

Transgenics is not per se risky or bad. It allows us to take steps in selective breeding that would take hundreds of years to do, and to pull tricks that could never be feasible 'naturally'

Now before anyone starts shrieking 'UNNATURAL', just bear in mind that strychnine, arsenic, radiation, plutonium and death are all natural.

Most of what we do is stunningly unnatural.

Never very keen on Spanish strawberry's until I discovered that a few seconds in the microwave brings out the flavour. Taste delicious when warmed up a bit!

Here's another tip.

If your strawberries are a tad unripe/tasteless, add a bit of lemon juice.

If your strawberries are a tad overripe, add a bit of lemon juice.

In both cases, the flavour is enhanced.

I love Spanish strawberries, and they are so cheap, can't understand why yours are bad

Easy. Like so many fruits, they are only really tasty when they are fully ripe.

If people buy/pick fruit that isn't ripe enough, they shouldn't complain that the fruit is bad. They should try and learn what a ripe one looks like and stick to that.

I never ate an orange in the uk, just chewed it and spat it out, Spain I can eat the lot they just melt in your mouth

Been buying them at Mercadona now for about three weeks, I always go for the very red ripe ones.....they are delicious!