Rob's Rants

The first strawberries in may garden started to ripen last week while I was away in California. My wife and daughter were luckily home to begin the picking. The growing season has been weird this year, with some very warm days in April to get things started, followed by a cool period in May, and then another heat wave in the last week of May with temps pushing 90° F. So many plants seem “confused” and the strawberries are no exception.

I have three varieties planted: Earliglow (an early bearing variety), Seascape (a day-neutral variety), and Jewel (a mid-late variety). But all three are beginning to set fruit. The Earliglows have the biggest fruit by far though.

This is only the second year for the bed, so the plants aren’t dense and the berries are sparse. I cut back all the flowers and runners last year to help the plants establish themselves. This year, I’ll start to let the runners fill in the rows and make the area more dense.

They are growing this year on top of hemlock mulch. I started them last year with red plastic mulch that made it through the winter. Since I started the beds on a hillside that was pretty much weeds the year before, I wanted the plastic to help with the first year weed control. But now I want the plants to have room to set some runners.

There seems to be mild to moderate slug damage this year – probably 1/3 of the ripe berries showed some signs of being gnawed on. Time to sprinkle the Sluggo snail killer. Otherwise, I haven’t had to spray for anything.

This content is published under the Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Please click link for information.

Related posts:

1. Oh No … I Think Late Blight is Here Already
2. Preventing Late Blight in This Year’s Garden
3. T-Mobile bumps their entire 3G network up to 7.2Mbps, 21Mbps coming soon
4. A Local Source for Vegetable Plants