Strawberry Work

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We've Been Cleaning the Herb and Flower beds.

First off was dealing with the badly over grown strawberry bed. I did not take before pictures. It looked amazing, once we had weeded the edges, thanks to the weed barrier we'd installed when planting them this spring. But the lush growth was mostly due to thousands and thousands of runners that had filled in the whole area, in an attempt to take root.

It was amazing all the places they'd had success; under rocks we'd used to weigh down the barrier, a dirt clod here and there, some had even rooted into each other.

I'd been so busy with canning, that our gardens had been sadly neglected for the last two months. But here is the after picture.





The one grouping of June bearers was not looking so great. It had put all it's energy into berries, just a month after being planted, so it is a little sparse looking in the greenery department. They should look a lot better next year.





The everbearers, which did not produce this first year, are looking better. I am looking forward to getting a lot of berries from them next year, but spread out over the summer. I'd love to get a cup or two a day. We'll see how that pans out.





I really hate to waste anything, and there they were, all those runners. I don't want another bed of berries to tend, so what to do....? Bundle them up and decide later, of course. We can give them away, plant them in sand over winter, sell them next year, or maybe even see if there is a spot where we can let them naturalize and watch what the result is.

So we painstakingly trimmed the ones that had decent rootlets and some leaves, wrapped them in handfulls with runners as ties,





and dropped them into 5-gallon buckets to deal with when we've got a little more time.





Boy, does it feel good to have that done!

~Faith

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