These past few weeks have been a little crazy and I have found it rather difficult to get to the blog but I am happily back! As many of you know our strawberry season has recently finished and we are currently into a fantastic crop of raspberries. Things around the farm have changed quite a bit, our pigs weigh in at close to three hundred pounds, next years strawberry plants are healthy and doing well and our apples have a relatively large amount of pre-mature fruit on them.
Next years strawberry crop is currently being weeded about everyday of the week, weeding during the first year of strawberry growth is essential and ensures that the runners currently spreading from the plants, will have a much easier time rooting and therefore increase the amount of bushes for next year. As well if you allow weeds to infest the patch during the growing stage of the strawberries the plants are forced to compete for both nutrients and water, which can stunt the growth of the plant. It is also during the stage that the plants send out what are known as runners. Runners are a way strawberries reproduce by sending chutes out in every direction that eventually root and form new plants. We must 'train' the runners which requires us to move the runners into the row and put a little dirt on the tip so that it will root.
By doing this we can make the strawberries form neat full rows that choke out weeds and allow an easy way for people to pick berries. A tip for home gardeners growing strawberries, if you have them in an outdoor plot train the runners in one direction away from the plants to a new spot. Keep it well weeded and let the runners root, then when the new plants gain some size plow under the old ones. By doing this yearly you can literally rotate the strawberries without re-planting. Of course when you plow under the old plants you will want to add compost and perhaps a green manure crop such as alfalfa in order to add the nutrients used up by the strawberries. I hope you may find this useful and if you have any other questions please e-mail them to me and i will do my best to answer them.
Every weekend we are baking the pies in the wood oven and things are beginning to shape up. The building is coming along though taking a little while longer than expected. I must apologize as I do not have a lot prepared for this week. If you happen to stop by the farm please feel free to ask me any questions you may have about the farm or about your gardening at home. The blog should be updated a little more often now, closer to every week. I hope all of you are having a terrific summer and hopefully I will see you all soon!
