Strawberries Ideas, Tips & Guides

Left: Gary Miller / Getty Images; Right: Jacob Fox

If you think bark is solely a holiday treat, think again. We’re talking edible bark—think peppermint bark, chocolate bark, and other variations of this crisp, chilled treat that so often make appearances in holiday cookie swaps and gift boxes. Many of us might associate bark (mainly peppermint bark) with cozy holiday memories, but bark is actually also the perfect warm-weather treat: As temperatures climb, a cool treat is sometimes exactly what you’re craving.

What makes these plants special in the world of gardening? Well, all of these bring something unique to the table (umm, the sides on the leaves or stems) that will enrich your plant collection!

What is this maggot-looking insect on the bottom of this strawberry leaf?

Wondering what to harvest in April? There’s a fair few things to gather this month, from fresh veggies to forced fruits. Here are just a couple of examples to harvest now or very soon!

I was trying to avoid tulips for today’s IAVOM, as they could easily become a mainstay for many weeks; however, these creamy tulips were tucked out of the way where they mightn’t otherwise be seen and, like last week’s fiery contribution, they are also a bit of an enigma. They are growing in the cutting beds where they were planted around 10 years ago with the sole purpose of cutting them. Presumably, they flowered in the first year of planting but, although there has been foliage in some of the intervening years, I don’t think there have been any further blooms until now. My guess is that these are mature bulblets from the original bulbs, now large enough to flower: I have only picked the two blooms that were in full flower, but there are others to come. They may be ‘Exotic Emperor’, which I have bought periodically over the years.

What is the bloated tan thing found on the underside of this strawberry leaf?

What is the tiny critter on the petal of this strawberry bloom?

We have lots of meetings coming up over the next few months, so be sure to keep a close eye on the Upcoming Events tab so you don’t miss anything. Coming up this week, we have the Upstate Apple Meeting in Walhalla and the Midlands Strawberry Meeting in Saluda.

Growing strawberries is a great way to add fresh fruit to your home garden, and it couldn’t be easier.

Nicholas Sampogna

Stocks Strawberries are subject to several serious virus diseases, and at one time these threatened to make commercial cultivation quite uneconomic and garden culture most disappointing. However, there has been considerable improvement in the general health of strawberry stocks since the introduction of a government scheme of inspection.

You might know about Croton and Polka Dot indoor plants. But did you know that Begonia, Fittonia, Ctenanthe, Tradescantia, Stromanthe, Cordyline, and Neoregelia also have varieties with 4 color leaves?

Increasingly, news outlets are discovering something interesting: their audiences are tired of gloom and doom stories. Instead of only covering what’s not working, readers want the media to cover what is working: ideas, solutions and actions that are making positive change in the world.

Tips for Growing Strawberry Geraniums Outdoors

After reading this till the end, you’ll be able to identify the Poison Ivy Look Alike Plants growing around you. As these are not as harmful as poison ivy, you won’t need to get rid of them.

Common vetch (Vicia sativa) is starting to show up in vegetable fields. Vetch is a cool-season weed that begins germinating in the fall and begins blooming in the winter, peaking in the spring. Vetch is in the legume family, making it capable of fixing nitrogen in the soil. For this reason, vetches are sometimes used as a component of multi-species cover crops. Vetch can be particularly problematic in crops like strawberries as it comes up in the planting holes in the plastic, competing with the young strawberry transplants for water and nutrients. This competition can significantly slow down the development of the strawberries, reducing their yield in the spring.

Candles have been used for centuries to add warmth, ambiance, and fragrance to our homes. In this article, you’ll explore some creative and straightforward DIY Wickless Candle Ideas that you can easily make at home.

Nearly one third of the food produced in the world is thrown away. Much of it is damaged fruits and vegetables. If you have your own garden, you may be tossing away less than perfect or even slightly damaged vegetables. In our culture that is skewed toward perfection, even the tiniest pinhole on some kale is often considered food waste and is tossed into the garbage bin. Is it safe to eat kale with holes in it? It often depends on what made the holes rather than the holes themselves. Curious if you can eat vegetables with holes? Read on to learn about eating damaged produce.

It doesn’t matter how spotless your kitchen is. If you have a counter full of appliances and a whatever, wherever tactic for food storage, your kitchen will inevitably look cluttered.  We tapped two organizational experts—Danielle Dorn, design director of mDesign, and Morgan Ovens, founder of Haven Home Wellness—for their top tips for reducing kitchen clutter. Read on for six quick and easy tasks you can complete today. Clean, clutter-free kitchen, here you come. 

Back in May, Lex Madden, bar manager at Point Easy in Denver, Colorado, told BHG that “the spritz is absolutely the drink of summer!” 

First came feta, which brought with it an outrageous amount of baked feta pasta and whipped feta dip recipes. Then came cottage cheese, and that dairy-based food trend du jour added a flurry of savory recipes, such as pizza toasts and pasta sauces. Then things snowballed into a storm of sweet recipes ranging from edible cookie dough and “ice cream”—all made with cottage cheese.

James R. Salomon

Encouraging your children to get into gardening is a great way to introduce them to the wonders of the natural world and kickstart a love for the outdoors. Especially in a world where entertainment for kids is often dominated by screens, getting children engaged with nature is a great way to keep them moving.

Talking about my efforts last week to remove violets and ivy from under the apple trees generated an interesting conversation about the weeds whose presence we disliked the most in our gardens.

Max Kim-Bee

Fancy turning your homegrown fruits, berries and other produce into tasty jams, pickles, chutneys and jellies? Then make sure you’ve got everything you’ll need, by checking out our handy guide.

After a week trapped inside by work, on Saturday morning I happily pottered around the garden for several hours. I started in the front garden, cutting back the comfrey and stuffing it into buckets to make liquid feed, since the flowers have faded to the point where the bees are no longer interested. I also harvested the wild strawberries that had been wafting a ripe aroma around the place for several days. In doing so I disturbed a frog that was hiding under their leaves. Two hops and it had disappeared again; I almost didn’t work out what had caused the movement. We know we have frogs in the garden because they hop out when we’re working on the unruly corners, but other than that we rarely see them. Which is fine, they’re doing a grand job of pest control.

BBC News has an interesting article this morning about scientists that have managed to grow marigolds in crushed moon rock. Apparently with the right combination of bacteria they can extract the nutrients they need from the rock. Which, in my mind, proves that organic gardening is the way to go – it’s the only method that preserves the soil ecosystem that plants obviously rely on to thrive.

It’s a family tradition for my dad to make a lot of different petits fours in the run up to Christmas. Some are packaged up nicely and given as gifts. The rest are eaten over the Christmas period. A lot involve marzipan, but my favourites are the peppermint creams, half coated in dark chocolate for a real treat. I’ve never quite mastered them myself, although I remember making the soft fondant version at school once. Dad has a different recipe, which involved boiling sugar syrup. I need to spend some time experimenting in the kitchen.

Wimbledon fortnight coincides with the height of the strawberry season here in the UK and the humble strawberry becomes world-famous as tennis spectators tuck into strawberries and cream in front of the cameras. This year it even looks like they’ll be able to leave their raincoats at home!

Over the weekend I got involved in a project that Sustainable Didcot (one of the local Community Action Groups) is putting together under the banner ‘Incredible Edible Didcot‘. The aim of the Incredible Edible movement is to encourage edible planting in public/communal areas, so that local people have access to food they can pick, but also so that people can come together with a sense of community. Sustainable Didcot have a community allotment, with a polytunnel, on the site where I used to have my allotment (our tenures didn’t coincide!), but this will be their first public planting.

If you’ve just decided to grow your own vegetables to save money, then where do you start? A visit to the garden centre, or a quick flick through the seed catalogue, can be daunting – especially if you don’t have a lot of space for your vegetable patch. What’s going to give you the most bang for your buck?

It used to be that a ripe strawberry was a red strawberry, but things have moved on and there’s a lot more variety in strawberries these days. White strawberries, in particular, are becoming more common, and they offer up a challenge in terms of deciding when they’re ripe.

Once the cool chillies were removed from the planters at the front of the house, it was time to put them to their intended purpose – a high rise herb garden within reach of the front door.

Desserts are a problem when you can’t digest (or don’t eat) cow’s milk. Restaurants and ready-made versions are all but impossible, and a certain amount of creativity is needed to make them at home. A lot of the time, I don’t bother – I don’t have that much of a sweet tooth.