Hooray for strawberries!
 

Yesterday's harvest, the first of the season. The variety is Earliglow. They are almost two weeks behind this year because of the cold and wet spring.

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I like to eat them mashed up with a little bit of sugar, just as a sauce. Or put on a dollop of vanilla yogurt. Strawberries macerated with some sugar freeze well, too. I think they hold their flavor very well.:yes:

Here's what I do to keep the birds and other critters away from the berries. (This photo is from last year.)

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It's a pain in the neck to mess with the cages (and I also use some bird netting), but if I don't protect them, the birds get them ALL.:x

Ruth - delicious looking! After yesterday, I have full blazing sun and will be able to plant a strawberry bed. My friends and I go to one of the farms and pick. How much production do you get? And big are your beds? I would still be somewhat limited in space but if I could buy 50% less (I aim for about 60 lbs) that would save a lot of money. Piegirl

I have two strawberry beds. Each of them are about 6' x 20'. One bed (Earliglow) gives me more berries than the other. I have not weighed or otherwise measured the harvest from these beds, but I would say that I pick on average two quarts every other day for maybe three weeks (one variety matures earlier than the other, but they overlap). In practice, the first pickings are the biggest and then they taper off somewhat.

U-Picks are nice (though $$$) if you want to freeze them and be done with it all at once. I like having the harvest spread out over several weeks so I can enjoy them over a period of time.

If you plant a bed, do be prepared to protect them from the birds or you will harvest 0 pounds. I speak from experience.:cry:

Go for it. You'll be glad you did.:)

Ruth,
How did the season go for you ?

How do you manage your beds, as in,do you buy in new plants or do you grow your own for replacementing old plants.
As for my beds they are just starting to come to life now,we just :love: our strawberries here , but the *#birds:evil: also :love: my strawberries
Richard

This is how i manage my strawberries, i grow a 1960 s commercial variety,name ????? its about half the size of todays types but has a very nice flavour.I grow them in four rotating beds,in the photo,the bottom left plants that are about eight months old and will be used to grow next years plants from.Top left are plants that are a season old and will be fruiting fully for the first time in two months.Top right, are one year older again and this will be there last year before being removed and garlic grown,and so on.

I'm still picking Alpine strawberries here, and I'd like to keep picking them. I just missed a frost last night, but the weather now looks like it will be OK (from an extended forecast).

Gary

Are they those small white strawberries,and long do they fruit for??

Medbury,

The Alpines I have are red, and small. I think that there are also white and yellow ones. I've heard that birds aren't attracted to the light colored ones.

They are "everbearing", so they usually bear up to the first frost. That's about October 1st, here. The flavor is better than any regular strawberry I've ever tried.

Gary

Its the white ones that i use to grow Gary and they are also very nice eatting but just a bit to much work to get a good feed from, that is why i now grow a 1960 s variety,the fruit are not to small but not as large as those tastless blobs they call strawberries in the supermarket.
The red alpine strawberry grows wild in some places here up in where we call the high country.

Medbury,

You're about 12,000 miles from me, and you have the same tasteless blobs in the supermarket. My tasteless blobs are shipped from 3,000 miles away, California.

I'm hoping to get some sort of harvest from my Alpines, next year. I've divided then into 150+ plants.

If that doesn't work, I also planted a very large fruited variety called Cabot. I think one Cabot equals about a dozen or more Alpines.

Gary

[quote=Medbury Gardens;109860]Its the white ones that i use to grow Gary and they are also very nice eatting but just a bit to much work to get a good feed from, that is why i now grow a 1960 s variety,the fruit are not to small but not as large as those tastless blobs they call strawberries in the supermarket.
The red alpine strawberry grows wild in some places here up in where we call the high country.[/quote]

The differents between your tastless blobs and our tastless blobs is ours are local, i put it down to been growin in dead soil and feed on artifical fertilizers.

I checked out Cabot and looks to be a ideal strawberry for you folks in colder climates.