What I Learned This Year: 2010

1.  Cursed STRAWBERRIES!!  I weeded them, topped them all, and fertiziled them only for a small handful once in a while.  Every year I need to plant at least a dozen or more new plants for a continual harvest.  Plant everbears for all season long satisfaction.

2.  POLE BEANS seem to give a bigger, longer harvest.  The variety I planted was tough and stringy (Blue Lake Pole).  I will try another variety next year.  The vines grew up the fence and into the neighbors lilac bushes- twice as high as the fence.  They didn't really grow up the corn stalks, however.

3.  All SQUASH PLANTS were lousy this year.  Don't buy seeds from Lowe's anymore.  Yellow Squash and Zucchini was tough and yucky- not a big harvest either.

4.  I ordered lots of PLANTS FROM SPRINGHILL this last year.  We will see if they grow back next year and if it was worth it.  Planting 30+ plants was lots of fun.  (The ground cover plants are thriving.  Only two out of six ferns came back.)

5.  Once you lose a branch off a BALL WILLOW TREE, its not long til the whole tree splits and starts to come down.  We took it down before it fell.  (Dad and Micah)


Green Garden Goodness



6.  DIVIDING PLANTS already growing in my yard is a lot cheaper than paying for new ones.  (2 out of 3 lavendar plants survived and both daisy divisions survived.)

7.  I planted PEAS in mid-July.  The plants got nice and tall and the harvest was great but once it froze, the pods, which were still to small to pick, cracked and were inedible.  Plant them a little earlier, like July 1st.

8.  I missed not having PUMPKINS in the fall.  Be sure and plant some this year.  Or plant lots at Gram's around her trees where sprinklers are already set to water.

9.  Grandpa Molyneux said to FERTILIZE THE CORN with nitrogen fertilizer for bigger corn cobs.

10.  Uncle Marlo Bergeson says if you cut your PEACHES into quarters or more, you lose flavor into the syrup.  He recommends putting halves into bottles.  He says Peggy's tree is CANADIAN HARMONY.

11. Plant two or three different varieties of TOMATOES in case one of the varieties gets a disease.  Its a good idea to get them from different nurseries too.

Delicious, Sun-Warmed Strawberries

Parker's bowl of juicy strawberries.

When we bought our house four years ago, one of the biggest attractions for me was the backyard, which included a gardening area, as well as an already growing strawberry patch, raspberry patch and grapes for juicing. 

Every year my strawberry patch has given me different results.  I planted June bearing 'Fragaria' strawberries in late June 2007.  We might have gotten a handful of strawberries that year, but then for the next couple of years, the crop was plentiful. 

Mom says that she remembers coming over for dinner and seeing a big bowl of strawberries on the table that were just picked and ready for eating.  I think I bottled some strawberry jam in 2009, but mostly we just love to eat them fresh, warm, right out of the patch, or on waffles with whipped cream, or strawberry shortcake is always a favorite too.  (My mouth is watering.)

There is a lot of care that goes into growing strawberries, especially in preparation in the Spring.

First, I have learned that they need lots and lots of sunshine.  I have had to keep my smoke tree growing nearby pruned way back to enable the sunshine to reach my strawberry patch.

Also, they need to be watered frequently, at least twice a week, and while they are producing heavily, I water them probably every other day.

Strawberries need to be fertilized in the spring.  There is a special berry fertilizer that is good for strawberries and raspberries.  It is 1/3 ammonium sulfate, 1/3 Miracle Grow Azalea food, and 1/3 ironite.  I mix this up and sprinkle it on like I am salting a steak, not too much.

One thing that I have decided to do is to plant some strawberries every year.  The plants are only good for three or four years, then they die or quit giving berries.  But if I plant a dozen or so every year then I should always have a good crop. Mom say Cooks greenhouse off of Geneva and 1600 North in Orem sells pots for $8 full of twenty bare root strawberry plants.  She says that they are not pretty to look at, but that if you buy the plants with leaves and blossoms on they are much more expensive, maybe $1 each plant. 

You can buy June-bearers which (obviously) give their biggest crop in June.  Or you can buy ever-bearing strawberries which give you strawberries all season.  This year I bought the ever-bearing Albion strawberries.  The one advantage to the June bearers is that if you are planning to freeze them or do jam, you get a bigger harvest all at one time.  With the ever-bearers, the harvest is spread out over several months.  I have been told that if every thing is done just right, you can get 150-200 berries off of one, yes one, strawberry plant.  Now I have yet to see results even close to that, but I will keep trying.

After pulling all the dang grass out of the patch, I can plant the bare roots.

After I plant the strawberries, I keep a good watch on them.  They send out runners with baby plants on them, which is how they reproduce.  But if I keep these runners pruned back, the energy of the plant will go into producing berries instead of new plants.

In the last couple of years, I have thinned the patch down quite a bit in the spring.  But I have not had good results in doing this.  I have found that it only creates more room for grass and weeds that love to grow in my strawberry patch.  And they are not invited.   Some of the old plants will need to be removed, but then I will just fill in the spaces with new plants from the nursery. 

After I get everything weeded and planted, I will sprinkle Sevin dust around the entire patch to eliminate pests.  I hate to use poison, but I do not want to share my hard earned harvest with snails, slugs, or sow bugs, which also love strawberries.  If I do this early, before the strawberries start to grow, then I don't have to worry about poison on the berries.  After this, I will probably mulch with bark or even with grass clippings to cut down on the weeds that will continue to torment me throughout the summer.

Wow!!  It sounds like a lot of work, but a bowl full of delicious, sun-warmed, juicy strawberries is definitely worth it.