What a patch of strawberries! It’s been so long since I filled my homemade basket tray that I forgot when the last time was. This year I’ve had the joy of repeatedly filling it – we are up to 80 quarts at this point and I’m still picking strawberries. We’ve given away nearly half of them. That’s what many gardeners like to do. It helps even out the feast and famine nature of gardening. You give away some of your bumper crop, and someone else will likely give you some of their next bumper crop.
As a hobby gardener, sometimes it is a while between good harvests of one particular crop. That’s the way it has been with me and strawberries. For several years I nursed an old patch hoping for a good harvest; only to be repeatedly disappointed. The old plants never seemed to put out runners like they should have. So two
years ago I planted an entirely new patch hoping that soon I could fill my strawberry tray with fresh strawberries. But waiting was still the name of the game. The first long year I was advised to snip off all the blossoms and just encourage the plants to get stronger. Then last year we did harvest some strawberries, but not enough to fill my tray. The meadow voles ate as many as I did! But the plants continued growing and I kept weeding the patch and I added a little manure for fertilizer too. The plants multiplied and filled in the patch completely.
A week ago Saturday, I brought a handful of ripe strawberries into the house and said to my wife, “I think we will be picking strawberries on Monday.” Little did I guess how many. My small patch overflowed with berries; six quarts on Monday, 24 quarts on Thursday, and 21 more quarts on Saturday! Lots of strawberry shortcake, strawberry jam, strawberries for the freezer, and hopefully a strawberry rhubarb pie too! And lots of strawberries to give away to friends—another favorite thing gardeners like my wife and I like to do.
Just call it a banner week for a hobby gardener—a strawberry banner that is!