Straw on the Strawberries

This year I remembered to put straw down on the berries in November.   Last year I waited way too long and the berry plants did fine, but we didn't get too much of a harvest. 

It was a dumb mistake.  Next year I hope to get a much better harvest.

Alpine Strawberries

A few years ago I planted a little edging of  these alpine strawberries, Fragaria vesca.   They're dainty - less juicy and about half the size of regular strawberries. 

They have a terrific flavor and will produce early and all summer long.  

They don't send out runners, so these are a great way to grow produce in neighborhoods with restrictive homeowners association rules.   Just plant a row of these along a walk and they'll do double duty as a very attractive and edible edging.  

Plus, you can use these the same way you use regular strawberries, though it might take a while longer to get enough for a batch of jam.

If you can only get a cup of berries, use them for this Strawberry Mango Mint Freezer Jam.   It's our favorite freezer jam and takes only 1 cup of strawberries to 3 cups of chopped mango.   Perfect for these little alpine beauties.

You can find the berries at many garden centers and online.   Get a bunch and enjoy!

Strawberry Lemon Lavender Honey Jam

Jam and bread are two of my favorite things in the whole world.

Right up there with old barns.

And cemeteries.

And gardens.

Yep. That's where you'll find jam and bread on my list.  Right there at the top.

One thing I don't like in jam is too much sugar.   I like it to be more fruit flavor than sweet flavor.   It's jam, not candy.    I usually use 1/2 as much sugar as fruit in my recipes and I'm working hard on ways to use sweeteners other than sugar.

Like maple syrup.  [Peach Maple Cardamom Jam, Peach Maple Jam, Pear Maple Jam]

And honey.  I've been thinking a lot about honey in jam.

The trick with honey is to not let the flavor of the honey overwhelm the flavor of the fruit.   I decided to play.

While I was playing, I made this jam:  Strawberry Lemon Lavender Honey Jam.

It's beautiful.   And really really good!  The honey deepened the color of the berries into a deep dark red. 

Strawberry Lemon Lavender Honey Jam

• 1 lemon, zest and juice
• 4 cups sliced strawberries
• 3 T Dutch Jell All Natural Lite pectin
• 12 heads of lavender, tied in a bundle.
• 1 1/2 cups mild honey

Put the lemon juice, lemon zest, berries, lavender and pectin in a pot.  [You can stir with the lavender bundle.]  Bring to hard rolling boil.  Boil for 1 minute.  Remove the lavender bundle.  Add honey.  Bring to rolling boil and boil for 1 minute.  Ladle into jars.  

Notes:  If you don't want the odd lavender flower falling off into the jam, you can strip the flowers off and put them in a tea ball to steep in the jam as it cooks.   I found it easier to just use the bundle to stir with as much as I could, then I switched to a spoon when I needed a stronger stirrer.  

The jam isn't too sweet, especially with all that lemon.   If you want it to be sweeter, you can add more honey, or sugar if you don't want the honey to take over. 

This jam also mellows with time.  What flavor might seem overwhelming when cooking will tone down after the jam sits for a few days.  

The New Strawberry Beds

The weather cooperated and we were able to finish putting in the paths around the new strawberry beds.  Then we filled the beds themselves and then put in the strawberries.

This is where we left off on New Year's Day.   Paths dug, drainage worked, beds built and set. 

The first thing we did next was cover the paths with geotextile and then fill them with gravel.   It was back breaking.   Shoveling gravel is not my idea of a good time.  

Having paths full of gravel is my idea of a good time, so it all works out.

Then we cut the geotextile and stapled it around the edges of the inside of each bed.   This keeps the sand and good dirt from washing out of the bed under the sides and between the boards.   It works pretty well.    It's easy enough to drive stakes through the textile if we need to.

Then we put about 4 inches of sand in each bed, then about 4 inches of chicken manure, then another 4 inches of sand.   It will settle quite a bit, but that's enough to get things going for now. 

Since the weather was nice and we had plenty of strawberry runners that had rooted in the paths already, I decided that we'd pull up the runners and plant them now.   

If they live, we'll have a huge head start on next year.   If they die, it's not a loss since they'd have been a loss in the paths anyway. 
We planted 40 in each bed - June bearers in the far bed and everbearers in the near bed.    I watered everything very well and then covered them with a light bed of straw to protect them from the inevitable winter that we'll see yet this month and next.  

The weather has been ideal this week and I expect they'll take off just fine.   Once they're well established, we'll keep putting more straw on them.   Next fall, we'll load it up with manure again to raise the level of the soil inside.  The plants grow up through it.  Works like a charm.

New Garden Beds

Our strawberry bed needs to be redone.  It's too hard to pick them from the inside of the bed, so Lily requested that we make new beds that could easily be picked from both sides.   Since she does most of the strawberry picking and I don't have to, we were happy to comply.   

We started digging on New Year's Eve.    Warm and windy and perfect for digging.

First we had to peel all the grass off the clay.  Then we had to carve in the drainage and then build the beds in place.   We left a couple of sides low for now so it's easier to dump in sand and manure later.  

I love digging.    Really.   I'm short and I have a strong back and a shovel that's just right for me and I love a few hours of digging.  

By noon on New Year's Day, the wind had shifted north and it was too cold to continue.   This is as far as we got last weekend.  

It's supposed to be warm again this weekend.  We'll be putting geotextile in the bottom of the paths to inhibit weed growth and support the gravel a bit so it doesn't sink into the mud too fast.  Then we fill the paths with gravel.  Then we fill the beds with sand and manure.

As soon as I can, I'll be planting the strawberry runners from last year into these new beds.