We are just now finishing the last bag of our own frozen strawberries from 2010, as this season's berries turn ripe and ready for harvest. This is nice to know: our roughly 120 square feet of strawberries now officially keeps us in pink smoothies year round (32 pounds in the chest freezer so far!).
I'd say strawberries are a highly recommendable crop for urban gardeners, because with a small amount of labor and space, you can get a pretty hefty yield. I thin out old plants in the early spring, throw some shovelfuls of compost on them, mulch them with straw if there is any, weed them once or twice, and spend the rest of my summer drinking bourbon on a picnic blanket beside the strawberry patch. (It's that easy.)
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| In this picture from early spring, the espaliered fruit trees on the right side are underplanted with strawberries. There's also a patch of berries in the foreground. |
If you are very lucky, you will attract a small basket-worth of baby bunnies who shoot like furry ping pong balls out of the patch when you pass. If you are not so lucky, said bunnies will nip the tender young stems of your berry clusters, leaving the berries to moulder away in the mulch. Blasted bunnies.
6 comments:
I'm now perfectly picturing laying beside a strawberry patch on a lovely cabbage rose quilt, drinking bourbon. With bunnies frolicking. Love that image!
mmm...bunnies...
But seriously, your garden is beautiful; I can't stop looking at it. So neat, so clean, so healthy, productive, and well laid out. The blanket-lying and bourbon-drinking are also quite appealing.
Thanks, LeLo and Ellen. This is the first season I feel in control of the garden! Partly this is because I am using the paper flour sacks from the bakery and my last bales of straw to mulch the paths/suppress the weeds. And partly it is because I have cut back a little bit on my paying work in order to maintain a borderline level of sanity, which I do enjoy...
32 pounds!!??? Jaw-dropping. Hooray for pink smoothies!
Ah yes, I know those bunnies well. I swear mine have sprouted thumbs, and perfected the art of taking the pins out of the berry netting over the beds ;) I'm impressed you made last year's harvest last this long though. A berry smoothie would hit the spot right about now...I should check the garden...
Of course, Zoe, you need to build a special bunny playground, fringed with its own strawberries. Then the bunnies can multiply merrily and fluffily, while you can simply nip over to your own patch and guzzle all you want...
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