90-degree temperatures + Humidity + My frizzy hair + Memorial Day weekend = Summer is here!
And around these here parts, this weekend also marks strawberry festival time. Several farms that are only an hour or two-hour drive away have fresh strawberries for sale and all sorts of delicious straberry-flavored desserts for sale, in addition to pie-eating contests, music, and all that stuff you'd expect of a good festival. My husband and a couple of friends are going to a farm tomorrow that allows you to pick your own strawberries, and I can't wait!
Strawberries are my favorite fruit. The
strawberry bed we started is progressing nicely. The netting around the bed has prevented
birds and squirrels from nibbling on the budding fruit--so far--and I'm crossing my fingers that the berries grow into sweet delicious fruit.
We have two varieties: everbearing and Quinalt [I just realized, do the everbearing ones have a different name? I need to check the garden tag]. I had never seen pink strawberry blooms before, but apparently the everbearing blooms are pink--very cool! I like them even more now. In addition to several blooms, we have plants with actual berries growing on them. As much as I hope that our home-grown plants will produce berries for us, I know they won't be enough to satisfy my craving and that's part of the reason I'm going berry picking tomorrow. I plan to come home with enough strawberries to freeze to get me through part of fall, if I"m lucky. I'm not buying strawberries at the store anymore. They get mushy too quickly and rarely taste good. Those who live by eating only what's in season or locally grown know this already, and I know it too, but I think I have finally learned my lesson about throwing money away on store-bought berries. So tomorrow morning, it's all about the fresh-picked berries.
To my online friends who may be reading this, have a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend!
Yummmm! I love strawberries, they are one of my favorites too.. I could eat them until I burst!
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about those supermarket berries, they are down right awful! I ate some a month ago that were not completely ripped an paid the price with an aching belly!
In season, certainly is the correct time to consume them..and even better consuming them from locally grown farmers. you are very lucky to have a place near by.
Your berries appear to be on their way .... Good for you, I hope that they are sweeter and more delicious then you ever dreamed them to be.
Thanks Vetsy! I hope your positive words go straight to my berries and encourage them to grow. :)
ReplyDeleteI like the trellis you have created for your strawberries. Mine are in the strawberry jar until we can prepare a special bed for them. Happy Memorial Day!
ReplyDelete@Sage Butterfly--thanks! It's also to hold up the net we rigged around the bed to keep birds and squirrels away. So far it's working well.
ReplyDeleteI planted a strawberry bed last year and my first crop in coming in right now--so exciting. I bought a pop up plant protector 3' x 6' from Gardener's Supply and am very happy with it. Once the strawberries are done it will go to the raspberries and then the blueberries.
ReplyDeleteWe can never grow strawberry here in the humid tropics, so I admire you sweet, pretty strawberry flowers. Happy Memorial Day weekend!
ReplyDelete@carolyn--how exciting! can't wait to see how your berries progress.
ReplyDelete@autumn belle - thank you! But you have beautiful flowers in the tropics that we can't grow here, so I admire your blooms as well.