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Lessons Learned with Growing Strawberries

June 27, 2012 By Laura 23 Comments

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Here at our bitty homestead, we’re in our fourth year of gardening in the raised beds that Michael built.  This includes growing strawberries, which has come with a few surprises and lessons learned, some quite by accident! I thought I would tell you a little bit about that today. Especially because lately, we’ve had more strawberries than we’ve known what to do with, and it was the last thing we expected.

The first thing we learned, the very next morning after planting our very first strawberry starter plants 4 years ago, was that we needed to find a way to protect them from the birds and small animals, if we ever wanted to have any berries to pick.  There were squirrels feasting on our new plantings in our bed, and that put Michael in high gear. By the end of the day, he had built this ‘cover’ for the strawberry bed, that has protected it 100% ever since. It is just made of chicken wire and strapping, but it has been the perfect solution. It lets all of the light and rain/water in, the hungry critters out, and lifts right off for picking time.

lessons-learned-growing-strawberries Initially, we had planted both Ever Bearing, as well as June Bearing plants.  But after 2 years and not being so happy with the June Bearing plants, we ripped them out at the beginning of last season, and let the Ever Bearing take over. They were just too small, and not as good as the Ever Bearing. We weren’t sure we’d get any more Ever Bearing berries out of it that late in the game, but at least the June Bearing were out of the way.

lessons-learned-growing-strawberries-1 In the first couple seasons of production, we got some consistent berries to pick.  There were some every day. But rarely enough all at once, to really do anything with. So we just ate them snack-style all within the day we picked them. Year/Season 3 (last year) was better in the overall crop, with the Ever bearing having taken over the bed, and producing after all. We actually had enough at once to have dessert a few times.  I also saved the berries picked a few(0ther) days in a row, vacuum sealed them in a freezer bad, labeled and dated the bag, and put them in the freezer.

BTW, the vacuum sealer machine was a brand called ME. ; ) I sealed the bag tightly with a drinking straw stuck in the bag, put my hot lips up to it, and sucked all of the air out myself! Until it was pretty shrunk-wrapped looking, and I was blue.

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Now here are two things to take note of, in our new strawberry growing experience:

1) In the beginning, we had researched a lot on strawberries, and read that strawberry plants tend to only produce for about 3 years, before you really need to start again, because they won’t produce much anymore.  The first season is also expected to be somewhat of a slimmer crop, because the roots are really just trying to get established in the soil. In fact, it’s recommended that you pluck off the first flowers that produce (indications that a strawberry is about to form there), to give those roots more time to establish well.

2) Another thing we had read to do, was to cut or mow the plants down to an inch or 2 at the end of the season, and cover the whole bed with hay, or some other non-seed producing mulch, for the frost season.  Then in the spring after any risk of frost had passed, you could remove the top layer or so if there was a lot of it, but that generally the plants would grow right up through it – and then prior to breaking ground, the plants down in the soil would be protected from cold temperatures. So that’s what we did, and we found all of that to be true.In the meantime, my friend Paula told me that some woman Ann…or Annie Something….(I gathered from the way I was told, that I should know who this woman was…), highly recommends not covering your beds with any extra mulch of any kind.

However, come the end of Season/Year 3, we figured those plants were DONE anyway. We had gotten 3 years out of them, and planned on plating new starters the following spring.  So did not bother covering the bed with hay. We just let all of the abundance of plants, with stems, runner, leaves and all, just die there in the bed.  By autumn, it was looking as neglected and ugly as could be, in that cage. And early spring was not looking much better.

Until, new green plants broke through the broken down decay all around it.  We still figured they would develop much, and that we’d need to plant new at the end of May or so. But they just kept growing, and then they were flowering and producing like (not yet mature) berries, all through May.  By June, we were picking!

lessons-learned-growing-strawberries-3 Our very first picking, was a pretty healthy bunch!  But there were SO many more than these, that we would have picked as well. We just wanted to give them one more day. From then on, there were many strawberries that needed to be picked, every day or 2! So we had to gather, that Ann(ie) Something was right. There is no need to go through the extra efforts, or expense, of covering the beds with any other form of mulch, to protect them plants from the cold.  The plants all dying down at the end of their season, establish themselves as their own bedding cover. In fact, it seems allowing that, by intended means of giving up these old plants, somehow reaped a supposed extra year of production, and our overall best and largest season of strawberries ever!

So as you have probably gathered by now, we’ve been learning along the way here, and it’s been delicious and rewarding!  Who knows.  Maybe we’ll get a 5th year out of these plants, next year? Yeah…..likely not. But we all feel like we know more now, to be more successful in growing strawberries, than ever. That’s really part of the fun of gardening: learning!  The kids have labored and learned right along with us, and it’s been so wonderful.

lessons-learned-growing-strawberries-4 You might be wondering, what we did with having such a constant flow of incoming fresh strawberries on our hands.  Well……we ate some as we washed them.  Some were fresh berries on top of our cereal in the morning. There was Strawberry Shortcake to be had, a few times.  And lastly, some more went into the freezer for the plan of making jam, and others were made into a new and creative snack dessert.  The last two mentioned, are new strawberry-themed posts, coming up soon.  So stay with us!

Do you grow strawberries?  In beds or out of the ground? How do you keep the birds and critters from eating them?
Tell us about your strawberry-growing experiences, or hopes.

. . . . . .

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Filed Under: Gardening, The Homestead Tagged With: Gardening, growing strawberries, how-to-protect-strawberries, lessons-learned-growing-strawberries, protecting-strawberry-beds-from-animals, protecting-strawberry-plants-from-birds, raised-bed-gardens, strawberries, strawberry-growing

We Picked Our 1st Garden Strawberry!

June 29, 2009 By Laura Leave a Comment

Back on June 11, {O} came running in the house all excited, because Daddy had let her pick the first garden strawberry.

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It’s was a BEAUTY, don’t you think?  Thank goodness it was a good size berry, because every one of us were so excited, we had to split it 6 ways! My bit was just a tad bitter, I think. It was kind of hard to tell because it was so small.

strawberry

There were a few other of the June-bearing berries here and there, that were almost ready for picking, too.

strawberries

Some were in earlier stages than other, but they still looked like they were going to be good ones!

strawberries

Only a few days later, many that were green had already really ripened up nicely. Things were looking rather promising!

strawberries

Although now and then, we find one like this, and it just doesn’t seem quite right.  They sure make us laugh though!  Perhaps as we become more educated gardeners, we’ll learn just went wrong with berries like these.  Gosh…I almost feel sorry for it, the more I look at it.  But God doesn’t make mistakes. Right?  Maybe it’s sole purpose is for us gardeners to find the gift of chuckles among the leaves and vines. It sure works for me!

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All of the kids have enjoyed the excitement of building garden beds, and watching things grow and develop.  But it’s evident that {O} really feels the joy and passion inside that I do, with this new experience of gardening.

You know….I was just about to say that I wish I discovered the joy of growing produce in your own gardens as young as {O}, when I was suddenly flooded with a few childhood garden memories of my own.  In fact, I’ll have to dig up and share with you all,  a little something I just remembered I have stored away, that I think you all may appreciate.  If for nothing else, because it’ll give you a little gardening chuckle.

I did love gardens when I was little, come to think of it.  So maybe it’s not a new passion after all, but just a forgotten one, that has been…..hibernating.  I’m sure glad it’s decided to come out, and fill me with daily joy.

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Filed Under: Gardening, The Homestead Tagged With: Gardening, growing strawberries, kids-gardening, picking-strawberries, strawberry beds, strawberry-photography, strawberry-photos

Strawberry Fields. FOREVER!

June 8, 2009 By Laura 3 Comments

Our family has gotten into some major gardening this year, and you’ll be seeing a whole lot of  it coming up this summer.
Our first project was a strawberry bed.
growing strawberries
We LOVE strawberries!  Just fresh picked and washed.  In our cereal.  As strawberry shortcake.  Chocolate covered strawberries.  : )   If our crop is plentiful enough, I may even make some jam!

growing strawberries

In early May,  Michael built the bed, and we filled it with some ordered and delivered loam, because our yard/land is pretty sandy.  Then we planted 2 kinds of strawberries. Junebearing, and Everbearing.  I discovered while planting that we didn’t get a tag for the Everbearing plants.  I was irked with that, not only because I would have liked to know which variety of Everbearing we got, but also because I wanted to photograph that tag too. lol  Anyway, once all was planted, the bed as a whole looked somewhat on the pathetic side, but I was hopeful they all just needed to get acclimated to their new home.  Don’t look at the ground around it for now. We’ve got BIG plans for all of that too.

growing strawberries

Here’s a shot of a newly planted Everbearing.  When I came across it in my shots, I had to include it because, you have no idea how much time I spent trying to figure out what the original orientation of the photo was that I shot it at.  I did 2 full rotation, 90 degrees at a time, trying to figure it out. lol.  If you think it looks wrong now, you should see the other ways. I was getting dizzy.  I must have shot it at a weird angle.

growing strawberries

This is the tiny beginning blooms of this Everbearing plant.

That first day that we had gotten this garden all planted, a vacationer staying in the beach house next door, asked me how we planned to keep the birds, squirrels and other pesky creatures out of the strawberry garden.  I told him I wasn’t sure, but that I shouldn’t have to worry about it for awhile, because they didn’t even have berries yet.  He just looked kept looking at me, and didn’t respond to that, which I determined as rather odd.  Made me glad, in the moment, that  he wasn’t a real neighbor.  Know what I’m saying?

Well, the next morning we discovered a squirrel romping around in our bed!!   The strawberry bed I mean.  Not the one we were sleeping in. lol.  (Thank goodness.)   Not only was he/she (whatever…who cares) trampling all over the place, but it had already bitten off several of the long stems to the Junebering plants! Turns out Mr. Funny-Looks that was next door, is from Vermont, and has acres of all kinds of gardens. Or something.

Well….I saw Michael do that tight-lips thing he does, when he is super aggravated.  I think it took him all of 2 hours to sketch out a battle plan, (remember…he sketches everything out first)  go to Home Depot for some supplies, and build THIS baby…….

growing strawberries in a covered bed

I was DULY impressed, as I often am with his designing and building abilities, and his facial expression had definitely moved onto one that spoke more of,  “Take THAT squirrels.”  And then one of the kids suggested we get up early the next morning, sit in the window and wait for the squirrels to come, and laugh at them.  (I don’t know WHERE they learned such gloating-type attitudes!? lol)  (OK, I might know where, but I’m not telling you.)

So that all was back in May.  Yesterday in the late afternoon, I went out and did some garden weeding.  The cover just lifts right off very easily, if you’re not 4 legged gray-furred creature, with a long bushy tail.  I thought I’d take some more photos while I was at it.

growing strawberries

Just LOOK at all of the flowers on these Everbearing plants!!

growing strawberries

I just learned that we should pluck these first flowers off, to give the roots more time to get established before the plant starts producing fruit.  So I’ll do that today.  I had been told, when we bought them, that the Everbearing plants, which tend to give a good 3 crops per season of the bigger, juicier strawberries,  can take 2-3 years to really produce a good crop.  But my mother-in-law disagrees with that and says we’ll get plenty this year.  So I guess we’ll see what happens.  Since the Junebearing only put out one good crop for 2-3 weeks ( around June, I’m guessing, lol),  I wasn’t planning on a whole lot, collectively, THIS year.  I hope my mother in law is right, this time. lol

But over at the Junebearing plantings, we’ve got berries growing all over the place!!  Check it out!

growing strawberries

As new gardeners, the initial discovery of strawberries growing had us screaming, and making the neighbor’s dog start barking.  We were rather excited.

Sometime the next day, I saw a squirrel nearby, and before I could stop myself, I yelled in his little rodent face,

“WE WIN!!”.

Now what does that tell you?

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Filed Under: Gardening, The Homestead Tagged With: covered-gardening-beds, covered-strawberry-beds, garden beds, garden photography, garden photos, Gardening, growing strawberries, protecting-strawberries-from-animals, strawberries, strawberry beds

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