Strawberry Hunting

As I mentioned previously, we have had a lot of rain.  My informal rain gauge is a 5 gallon bucket from Lowes Home Improvement Center.  I just leave the bucket sitting out in an open area of the yard.  Open area means, no tree branches overhead.  Every day, when I go outside, I check to see how much rain has fallen since I looked the day before.  Nearly every day, for the last month and a half, I have emptied 1/2" to 1" of water out of the bucket!  That is quite a bit of rain!

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Also, I mentioned previously that the rain has really made the garden grow.  This has done a great job for the vegetables.  It has also contributed to the lush green growth of the weeds!  As you can see from the next picture, the weeds have taken over!  One can hardly tell the difference between the radishes, lettuce and the weeds in this bed!

As I was gazing at this mess, I noticed something red in amongst the weeds of one of the raised beds.  

Oh. My. Gosh.  

Could it be true?  Might it be a strawberry at last?  Yes!  Hidden down in the weeds I found a large strawberry with two others developing next to it!  

Last year, with high hopes and big plans, I set out 50 strawberry plants in two 8' x 4' raised beds.  They really did not do very well.  Alot of them just died.  I had grown strawberries successfully in Texas, Washington, Idaho and Nevada.  I wondered if maybe there was some secret to growing them in Vermont!!  

Over the winter even more of them died.  I speculated that I should have mulched them to protect them from the severe cold.  

This Spring I found that the ones that survived were the new starts that had sprouted from runners which the mother plants had sent out into the bark-mulched garden paths.  

I transplanted all of those wanderers (about twenty plants) back into one 8' x 4' bed.  They seemed to do well, and quite clearly the rain has done wonders for those strawberry plants. 

Further hunting rewarded me with one dozen of the beauties!  Oh Yum!  What a treat.... one dozen organically grown, freshly picked, super sweet strawberries!

Have a nice day!