Strawberries are once again on the tasting menu here at The Strawberry Planet. I grow a small batch at this time, but am studying the plant's behavior so that I know how much I can harvest from it on a daily basis once this plant is mature and in season.
I am curious what It would take to gather enough berries for a batch of strawberry jam. My recipe requires five quarts of crushed berries. That is a lot of fruit. To accomplish this type of production I would need a very large strawberry patch. Now, of course, if I wanted to freeze berries as they ripen on the vine, a gallon sized bag would suffice. I'd need at least a few weeks at the rate my current plant is producing.
The basket here on the right shows the very first of the berries for season 2016. This plant is strong and healthy. It is a happy little berry machine and I dare not disturb it. Once a plant has proved its worth, please do not meddle with it! I've killed beautiful plants because I carelessly moved it from one spot to another. The best advice I can give is just scrape old soils out from around the base of a plant and replace with fresh stuff. In a container, the soil level usually drops a bit during the growing season as it is watered. Replenishing soil is a simple method here. Just fill the container back to about three inches from the tip and water well.
The rest of my garden is referred to as Survival Recovery Farms. It is a project that inspired me to walk out of a dark period in my life and bask in not only the physical sunshine on our planet, but the sunshine of the spirit. I strongly believe in gardening for the health of the body and the soul. You will read about that in my upcoming gardening journal, The Secret to Gardening in the Desert (and everywhere else!.) I will be releasing it in October 2016 (hopefully!!) and it will be available as a Kindle book and a print on demand volume as well. Both will be featured on Amazon books when they are released.
I am curious what It would take to gather enough berries for a batch of strawberry jam. My recipe requires five quarts of crushed berries. That is a lot of fruit. To accomplish this type of production I would need a very large strawberry patch. Now, of course, if I wanted to freeze berries as they ripen on the vine, a gallon sized bag would suffice. I'd need at least a few weeks at the rate my current plant is producing.
The basket here on the right shows the very first of the berries for season 2016. This plant is strong and healthy. It is a happy little berry machine and I dare not disturb it. Once a plant has proved its worth, please do not meddle with it! I've killed beautiful plants because I carelessly moved it from one spot to another. The best advice I can give is just scrape old soils out from around the base of a plant and replace with fresh stuff. In a container, the soil level usually drops a bit during the growing season as it is watered. Replenishing soil is a simple method here. Just fill the container back to about three inches from the tip and water well.
The rest of my garden is referred to as Survival Recovery Farms. It is a project that inspired me to walk out of a dark period in my life and bask in not only the physical sunshine on our planet, but the sunshine of the spirit. I strongly believe in gardening for the health of the body and the soul. You will read about that in my upcoming gardening journal, The Secret to Gardening in the Desert (and everywhere else!.) I will be releasing it in October 2016 (hopefully!!) and it will be available as a Kindle book and a print on demand volume as well. Both will be featured on Amazon books when they are released.
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Follow the author's garden progress on social media here: www.mariaburgess,com
Growing More Than Strawberries
The images above are from my personal garden this Spring, 2016. As you can see, I grow more than just the berries. I have a green thumb they tell, me, but I think it's more brown, especially when I've been planting or pulling weeds. Garden gloves only hold back so much dirt. The top left corner is a batch of greens I pulled recently and one of my artichokes. I very proud of the kale shown. What you do not see is the grocery bag full of leaves which I harvested this past Friday. The greens were delish when I cooked them up southern style! There are springs of rosemary and parsley which I added to the kale dish as well as a potato salad I made up that day to serve with my dinner. There are onion tops that I chopped like chives and they went into each dish, as well. The two small, red things on the left are my first Sweet 100's tomatoes, which are tasty but awful small. The strawberries are #13, 14, and 15 off our beloved berry plant. I'm so very excited about seeing her go hog wild with berries again!
The next set of images are as follows:
Watermelon Seedlings
Strawberry Harvest #1 2016
Radish Seedlings
Sweet 100 Tomatoes
Spaghetti Squash
Tomato Branch Rooting
Corn Patch
Strawberry Image Quartet
I will post more this weekend as I have to move on to my day job, now. Have a great day all, and if you are in a mood, try gardening. There are so many more rewards with it than just the things you see and eat.
Ta ta for now! =)
The next set of images are as follows:
Watermelon Seedlings
Strawberry Harvest #1 2016
Radish Seedlings
Sweet 100 Tomatoes
Spaghetti Squash
Tomato Branch Rooting
Corn Patch
Strawberry Image Quartet
I will post more this weekend as I have to move on to my day job, now. Have a great day all, and if you are in a mood, try gardening. There are so many more rewards with it than just the things you see and eat.
Ta ta for now! =)
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