Garden Week: Surprises & Delights in the Strawberry Patch!

So, do you like strawberries?  Does your family?  Would you like to go to your own back yard to pick this beautiful crop, eat all you want while you pick, then run them into the house, clean them and make the freshest ruby red jam there ever was?

Strawberry season turns into a celebration of its own.  One of the first delights of the summer--right around the time the peonies bloom, and school lets out!

Home grown are sweeter, but will probably not be as large as commercial crops like you find at the U-pick.  But that's okay.  At least you know what went on your strawberries.

You won't have to worry about wonderfully fresh desserts and beautiful treats ...you'll have the makings of them for several weeks or so!  From an elaborate dessert, a strawberry pie, or to use in a beautiful salad with grilled chicken for dinner, strawberries crushed over ice cream, or just a bowl of fresh ones with a spare sprinkling of sugar, they are delightful!

Even Mama bunny thought so....she decided to have her babies here in a little hole in the center of our strawberry patch.  We will never forget watching them grow up and leave...in the meantime, mama learned to trust us!  She stayed with her babies when we came to pick and just kept her eye on us.  

We marked the spot by driving in a small stake nearby, tied a small ribbon to it so we wouldn't step on her or the little ones while we were picking.

And one year, we found...

A most beautiful nest with these amazing eggs inside.  We left those alone, too.  Part of me wanted to steal the nest and the eggs-- to keep them, they were so beautiful...!

Putting out blooms and forming berries.


It seems there's just a whole other world down there beneath the canopy of leaves in that strawberry patch!

And also this miracle...that puts joy in a farm girl's heart. 


 :0)

• STRAWBERRY BASICS from 1001 Hints And Tips For Your Garden
• Buy more plants than you think you need if you want to have enough to eat and to make jams.   For a family of four, two to three dozen plants if you want to eat them fresh and use them in the freezer or in jam.  (Or start with a few and add to your patch with the runners the plants will produce.  Just make sure you allow EXTRA room in your patch if that is how you plan to expand your number of plants.)
• There are two kinds:  June-bearing and ever-bearing which produce to late summer. (We have June-bearing.)
• Each plant can yield from a cup to a pint per year.
• When choosing plants, check the plants:  especially the neck,  a healthy stem, a rot free crown and spotless green leaves with whitish roots.
• Strawberries like rich, acidic soil, well-drained, well tilled, weeded and fed with aged manure or compost.
• Before planting, blanket the strawberry patch site with a sheet of black or clear plastic to have the sun "solarize" or heat it up so that patch of soil will stop weed growth.
• To plant, slash crosses in the covering you laid down 12-18" apart and set plants in.
• Best time to plant?  Overcast days before rain.  Soak roots in water before planting.
• Don't plant too deep or too shallow.
• Don't fold the roots under the plant, it's better to cut the extra off with scissors than to bend them.
• The first year, you are to pluck off all the blooms and not allow the fruit to come on the plant, this leads to a healthier plant and a better crop for next year.  This will be hard to do, but it will be better in the long run.
• Strawberries need a morning shower:  evening showers are not good for them because the moisture stays on them and is not good for the berry or the plant.
• Strawberries like to be fed in the summer:  compost mixed with blood meal and hoof-and-horn meal, or a little nitrogen-rich fertilizer if you notice that the leaves are yellowing.

(**We did not know what the heck we were doing with strawberries when we put them in, and ours are doing fine. We didn't do the plastic, and because of that, we fight the weeds choking out the plants, do I sure wish we'd known to do that first.  I do know that as soon as the plants start greening up, my husband throws down a nice, thick blanket of good fresh straw BEFORE the buds come on and the berries form:  you DO NOT want your berries to touch the ground.  This causes rot and mold and makes them more susceptible to pests that will eat them, like slugs or snails.)

You should know that strawberry patches can be a lot of work.  Sometimes you need to get the runners off (the plants reproduce themselves) and transplant them into another row.  We have always thought the work was well worth the fresh fruit we have in abundance.  


Strawberry patches can spread, and can age and need to sometimes be replaced and/or moved.  Our patch is almost to that point.  We still would not want to be without them.

Peonies for you...I like to share them.  They smell SO GOOD!!



Thanks for stopping by the farmhouse today, and remember, if possible, pay a little extra and get the plants from your local grower!  He or she will likely have good planting/growing/feeding advice for you, too!
xoxo
Joni