Today was a Berry Happy Day coming back from the garden. Why are we so very happy, you ask? We have some real juicy fruit to enjoy this evening for dessert, courtesy of our thornless blackberry hedge and our Seascape Everbearing strawberries.
We have had strawberries for many years but this is a new type, “Seascape Everbearing”. They are a great variety and still produce juicy delights this late into the season. While looking up info about the Seascape variety I noticed that Burpee recommends planting three different varieties of strawberries for harvest all season long. Earliglow, Jewel, and Seascape. We may be trying that out!
You can see the large amounts harvested from our early producing (large) in-ground patch last year, “Strawberry Heaven“.
If you are interested, you can see how many times we have moved the berry patch as we increased our garden size over the years here, “Strawberry Patch History“.
We are in the Cadillac phase of strawberry gardening since we built a waist-high bed for the berries this Spring. My back is so happy to not spend hours a day picking on my hands and knees. Actually, my back is not alone in this enjoyment, as my knees and hands appreciate this improvement too. Information about this improvement is in this previous post, “A Raised Bed for Strawberries“.
There is a history to this berry patch. Growing strawberries for the family took us a little while to get right. Pete and I started seriously growing them in 2015 at our place in Elk, WA. Beginning with seed, because of budget restrictions gave me very little success, but I didn’t give up and kept planting for 3 years. Looking at this picture they look pretty scraggly. Finally, we determined that the location they were put in the garden was not good for them.
When we expanded our garden in 2018, I decided to move the strawberry patch to the other side. First, building an 8″ raised bed approx 16 ft long x 2.5 ft wide using old concrete blocks and then transplanting the plants. We were blessed with a gift of more starts from my friend’s beautiful patch, and she also showed me how to pull the runners as I picked. Even though this was a new patch, because of the move, these 2 suggestions really made a noticeable improvement to the strawberry harvest and fruit size.
In the spring of 2019, my strawberries were overcrowded and desperately needing thinning. I removed the concrete blocks (CMU) surrounding the raised bed. Then we tilled the area around the original raised patch and lowered the soil level to be equal with the surrounding garden. We could disc the soil with our tractor then.
Thinning the overgrown area, I transplanted them to the newly tilled area in rows about 4-6 inches apart. The strawberry area became a 20 ft x 8 ft patch.
This is what it looks like this year and now this old gardening-girl is beginning to wonder, “What was I thinking?” We are already harvesting a lot of berries this summer. Sometimes my body talks to me about it and I am making friends with Tylenol and Aspirin in the evenings.
Strawberry heaven is anytime you are able to pick fresh strawberries and pop them into your mouth. Heaven for sure. A couple of days ago was my first time picking this year. It amounted to 1-1/2 gallons, which isn’t all that impressive, but it is still strawberry heaven in my book.
I picked 5 gallons of fresh strawberries in the garden this morning. So, it looks like I am going to be really busy with these berries this year, picking, eating, processing and canning.
If you are in need, call us and we will share. Or, you can get permission to come to pick yourself. We are considering selling at a minimal price at a farmer’s market if the COVID 19 insanity ever ends. We will probably have quite a nice harvest this year nonetheless.
We do love these beautiful red berries. Today, I plan on making syrup, juice, and fruit roll-ups after it cools a little more this evening. There is no need to fire up the stove during the hottest part of the day right?
