Has anyone read that book? That I know is a silly question, because if I love the book Jamberry
The first week after moving in up here Jason got right to work in working the land. Tilling, and preparing beds for strawberries…and lots of them. We ordered 1500 strawberry plants and with only mere days of preparation time, we know there wasn’t much any time to loose. The earth got tilled, and unearthed lots and lots of rocks. Goodness. It will be fun to see what use we find for them all. Needless to say, there was much effort put into clearing and taming the beds…getting them all ready for planting.
Then the big box arrived, and that was exciting. We decided on everbearing vs. the June bearing kind of strawberries. Our reasoning, was that although the everbearing variety do not produce one big crop like the june bearers, which is kinda what you want if you plan on using them for preserving, with 1500 plants there should be plenty enough to do whatever we want to with them plus have plenty left over for selling. Everbearing produce one continuous crop throughout the season. They are basically like a huge investment for us. We won’t get much of anything this year, we actually will have to pinch all of the flowers off the plants…sad, I know, but by doing that we will encourage strong root growth in the plants. Then next year, we will be all set. We purchased our plants online from Grow Organic. The Ozark variety are one of the most popular varieties and are good for both preserving and freezing.
After tilling the soil we added some Dr. Earth Organic Fertilizer
jam jamboree, definitely a favorite around here! my mom was thoughtful enough to save my brothers and my copy from our childhood…. lots of love in those pages! the strawberries will totally be worth the investment, mmmmmm
i love watching them shoot out the daughter sprouts, boy do they multiply!
I am quite sure that you can never have too many strawberries. Never, never, never!
Three years ago my daughter brought home a single strawberry plant from a school visit to Trax Farms. It sat, quite bedraggled, in its little dixi cup on my front porch for nearly two weeks before she noticed it was um….dying.
Guiltily, I emptied it out into my hand and shoved it into my front flowerbed that really only gets a couple hours or sun a day. (Lack of sun is a great sadness to me about my home location). Turns out….not only was it the everbearing kind, it’s ALSO the ever growing kind. The rest of that year was devoted to growing and sending out tentative runners. The next year year, that little plant sent out runners and made a few token strawberries just to prove it could. Last year, every morning I woke up it seemed there was a new runner trailing on the lawn. I cut them back and cut them back and cut them back. Then, my daughter caught me at it and cried. The next time I cut them back I shoved the little plants in various spots in my even shadier back yard. Don’t you know I just noticed those darn things sending out runners the other day? And I don’t mind at all!
I’m not anywhere close to 1500 plants….but in the middle of summer it certainly seems so!
Wow – 1500 is so exciting!! I remember my family garden growing – we had a strawberry patch and all the strawberries one could ever want, so good.
It all looks amazing! Just out of curiosity which zone are you in?
We are actually now in zone 5! We moved from zone 6, so it has been a bit of adjusting mentally I guess, however, this season has just been downright wacky with the weather fluctuations!
Yes!! I have loved the book Jamberry since my mama read it to me as a child.. and now I read it to my little one! I have blogged many times about waiting for berries, eating berries, and waiting again for the berries…… http://likemamalikedaughter.blogspot.com/2012/02/it-is-so-sad.html
Yay for strawberries, love them!!!
P.S. Planting food is our favorite investment
Yea, it’s like the only viable investment plan I see as a rational one!
That’s so wonderful!!
Love love strawberries. A big field of them… you’ll be in strawberry heaven.
It looks so nice Lisa. We planted strawberries last year and I was forward to having my own plants to pick from this year….then the rabbits came and had a feast! Now I am back to planting again!
Oh NO! I am hoping that the deer fencing that is up and our dog will help us keep the critters away as much as possible.