Strawberries and Tennis

My version of 'Bread and Circuses'... Hey, if our government can keep the common people in 'strawberries and tennis' then everyone's happy, right?  Uh,...right? 

'Wait!  These are my strawberries! What do you mean, 'redistribution of strawberries?  I paid for these when they were just little bare root starts.  I worked the soil and planted them, fertilized, then watered and weeded them regularly, covered them with straw over the winter, and then earlier this spring I rolled out the floating row cover when frost threatened, I patiently waited for an entire year, and then carefully picked each one when it was at exactly the right point of flavorful ripeness!  Wait!, STOP!   I should be able to eat all that I want and to share them with my friends and family!  What do you mean, you are going to take half of my strawberries and give them to the grasshoppers?'

First Strawberries

Today we harvested and enjoyed our first strawberries!  These are the so-called 'Strawberries as big as peaches' from Gurney's.   Actually today's berries were fairly large...about the size of a golf ball, give or take.  There are some larger-- but still green.  Flavor was decent, but not the outrageously yummy and explosive strawberry flavor that I was dreaming of!  I think that in addition to the cultivar grown, the soil that it is grown in and the weather conditions may have alot to do with the nuances of flavor.   One other fact to make note of is the narrow window of time between slightly underripe one day and slightly overripe another.  I will have to remember to check the berries every day from now on.  The big thing we love is strawberry freezer jam, so as soon as we have begun to eat our fill of fresh berries, then I can start to save them up in the freezer until I have enough for batches of jam. 

This coming Sunday:  waffles with fresh strawberries and whipped cream!

Tomatoes and Peppers sowed today

I have a dream to one day be a very good vegetable gardener (Smile).  I am learning something every year, I suppose.  Doing better about keeping some notes.  I'm slowly getting some permanent beds established.  One day I will have enough permanent garden space to have room for everything I want to grow and also to be able to rotate the crops properly.

The big step this year was finally getting that hoophouse covered.  I wish I had had it done last fall, so that I could have overwintered some things, but better late than never!  We have it in now, and have even managed to start some things early to be transplanted later.

I don't pretend to have it all figured out, but this is what I managed to get seeded so far:  Back on April 21st, I seeded some Okra, six different kinds of melon, five different cucumbers, and some old sage seeds.

Today, two and half weeks later, I have finally seeded about thirteen or fourteen different kinds of tomatoes.  Mostly heirloom, but a few hybrids.  Ten different varieties of peppers; some hot and some sweet...again mostly heirloom, a couple of hybrid varieties.

I have saved these all in an Excel file.  (Trying to do better with keeping notes)!