GardenDesk

Defending the Strawberries!

When it comes to the garden plants, my cat isn't the only animal that I need to be worried about. Outside there are raccoons, groundhogs, skunks, opossums, foxes, deer, and many birds that are watching my garden to see what is ripe and ready for the taking! Last year, the critters ate a lot of my garden! The first major front that needs defending this year are the strawberries. It looks like it is going to be a great crop!

We planted these strawberries last year using the hill method. The hill method for strawberries is not mounding up the dirt, or planting on top of small hills. We planted one long row of strawberry plants and then meticulously cut the runners back as the plants sent them out. We didn't let any daughter plants form like you would in a matted row system. So much energy stays in the main plant that the plant grows twice as big as they would with the matted row method. The plants grow to be two feet tall! Since there is only a single row of plants, the plant "looks like" a hill, which is why it is called the hill method.

So now that last year's work is paying off and I have many green strawberries ready to ripen, there is no way I'm going to let the animals have them! Tonight, as it was getting dark I gathered up some scrap wood, a hammer and nails, the roll of flexible fence that I recently bought, and the garden shears (for clipping back the runners) and got to work.

I built a little wood trellis down the center of the strawberry bed.

I then stapled the flexible fence to the landscape timbers on one side and stretched the fencing up over the wood trellis. On the other side I stapled the fence to removable scrap boards. This formed a little temporary A-frame fence.

I attached the fence in three foot sections, overlapping the sections as I went along. The removable boards can be lifted up a section at a time to reach in for harvesting.

I'm pretty sure this will keep the animals out. The only thing left to be concerned with are slugs. I haven't seen any on the strawberries yet but I have found some on the lettuce. I plan to put out saucers of beer to attract the slugs when the berries ripen.

It is crazy how defensive you have to be with food gardening. I am looking into what it would take to put an electric fence around the entire perimeter of the garden. That would take care of everything but the deer. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself with this though. Tonight, I can sleep a little easier knowing that my strawberries can now ripen in peace. I can hardly wait.

I'm off to bed to dream about....Strawberry Shortcake!
mmmmmmmm!

Blueberries, Strawberries and Deck Building

I didn’t get enough accomplished this weekend in the garden or with my deck building project, so I took a vacation day today (Monday). It was a great day to work outside. I just have to finish this deck or I won't get to plant all of the vegetables on time! I made great progress today and my wife and I managed to create new blueberry and strawberry beds. See, If I didn't have to go to my job, I could get so much done! Have you ever found yourself saying that? Anyway,this is what my deck project looks like right now:

The idea was to finish it today (yeah right) but our new strawberry and blueberry plants couldn't wait any longer. Part of the day had to be spent creating new beds for them. This was much more fun and I got to garden with my lovely wife too. We both garden a lot, but because of our schedules, we usually work alone. We had to start from scratch with these beds.

We had to till a little and then rake the sod pieces out. Since these patches had never been gardened before, we had to add a lot of compost.

Look at the contrast between that wonderful black compost and the dull brown dirt. After raking in the compost, we added peat moss for the organic matter, to help with water retention and to lower the pH.

Blueberries need an even lower ph than strawberries, as low as 4.5. Peat alone is not enough for this so we added some organic garden sulfur.

We then planted a high bush Jersey blueberry plant and a high bush Eliot Blueberry plant. Our new strawberry variety is Cavendish. We also transplanted some of last year’s plants, but I can't remember what kind they are right now. After much work, here is the finished product:

Here's one of the Blueberry plants, followed by some of the strawberry plants:

Thinking of those sweet delicious berries just makes my mouth water. And how great it will be to enjoy them seated under the umbrella table on our new deck! But as for now, back to my real job. See you tomorrow for Wordless Wednesday!