Strawberries Ideas, Tips & Guides

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.

Last year we had a great swathe of the garden paved. Our patio means you can get to most places in the garden without getting bogged down in mud, and was designed to draw you out of the house and turn the garden into an outdoor ‘room’. It does that job really well, and we love it. There’s no paving inbetween the raised beds; the ones we finished last year have a weed fabric and bark chip path. The newer set had grass and mud. But that changed yesterday when Ryan dug over the area and laid some paving slabs that we’ve recycled from my parent’s garden. It’s a gardener’s path – meant merely for practicality and not for show. You can’t see it unless you’re almost on top of it, but it means I can reach all of the beds from a garden path. Which is good – we’ve had enough rain this year that the garden has been a quagmire for much of it.

I’ve got a lot of new strawberry plants in my garden this year. They’re not all planted out in their final homes, so it won’t be a bumper crop, but there should be some ripe fruits for me to harvest soon enough. I’ve got several different sorts, from the tiny red and white alpine and wild strawberries to the standard garden red ones, and some intriguing framberries that are strawberries that taste like raspberries! So it will be fun to see how those turn out.

This is the list of (the main) things that are harvestable in the garden this week, from which I can put together a garden menu. I’ve never been that great at eating things out of the garden, for a variety of reasons (including an uninterested audience, a lack of time or motivation and a lack of experience of planning and producing meals that didn’t come from the supermarket). So this week I have surveyed what’s growing well in the garden, and I’m doing my menu planning before I put together the final shopping list for the week.

Hello and welcome to Meals on Mars, your weekly imaginarium devoted to the future of food on Earth and beyond!

Today (May 20th) is Pick Strawberries Day in America. It’s a bit early in the UK – the strawberry season is only just beginning, ramping up to be ready for Wimbledon in June.

Courtesy of Dutch Boy Paints

Many gardeners find working outdoors is made more enjoyable by the array of bird songs that fill the air. Yet, did you know that some native birds of Northeast America are beneficial to the garden, while others can be detrimental? Being able to identify which birds are visiting the garden, helps gardeners determine whether or not they should be attracting or deterring these creatures.

Soon, your morning coffee might feel a little different: Dunkin' Donuts seems to be breaking into the alcohol business, with a whole new line of spiked coffees and teas.

Bloomcore, also known as flowercore, is an aesthetic trend that is just right for gardeners. It embraces the natural world, and most importantly, flowers. Putting nature first, it creates a pretty, flowery look both indoors and outside in the garden.

Jobs to do each month:

Plants play a positive role in promoting a healthy day to day life by stimulating the five human senses – Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste, and Touch. Here are some awesome Sensory Houseplants for a Stimulating Indoor Garden that you can grow with ease to add an appeal to your rooms and enrich the life experience.

An inseparable part of British summer time, the Wimbledon Championship is on between 29.06 – 17.07. With more than 450,000 spectators attending each year, and 19 grass courts, it is a massive event, yet it still retains its Victorian atmosphere and image.

No food signifies summer more than watermelon. We’re so sweet on the hot pink (or yellow) fruit that we designed an entire watermelon bar party showcasing the many ways to snack on, sip, and even centerpiece-ify the hydrating produce item.

The winter holidays might steal the spotlight as the season for sparkling wine, but we firmly believe that summer is where it’s at. (That said, there’s no wrong time of year to open a bottle of bubbly, if you ask us!) When the temperatures rise and we’re spending more time than usual in the sun (slathered in SPF, of course), we don’t crave a heavy IPA, potent bourbon-based cocktail, or powerful red wine. Instead, we find ourselves gravitating toward lower-ABV, ultra-refreshing (and hydrating!) spritzes. 

Divide and rule is the motto for those who wish to be king of the herbaceous garden. More plants for some little effort.

Ground cover plants are designed to do what they say in the title. They can cover the ground by design, happy accident or conscious neglect.

It is interesting to see how gardening adverts have changed with the horticultural industry and modern developments. Yet a top fruit business has in some ways stayed the same.

Here’s an exclusive list of Fruits That Grow on Cactus, you must grow in your garden to enjoy some unique and delicious edibles!

Instead of flowers and ferns, you can start growing fruits in hanging baskets. It is possible, and there is not just one or two but 6 great-tasting fruit plants perfect for your porch, patio, balcony, or rooftop.

Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.

COVID-19 has taken the world by surprise, and many people around the world have had to slow or shut things down in recent times. While many folks are working from home, one group of people who cannot are our farmers. Our farmers here in South Carolina have been working and are continuing to work each day so that the world’s food supply and our food supply here in South Carolina remains constant.

Strawberry season is one of my favorite times of the year. I always look forward to the sweet taste of locally grown strawberries. There are so many ways we can use these strawberries in recipes – pies, jam, muffins, and so much more! One of my favorites is this strawberry salad with candied pecans and pretzels. The pretzels add a perfect balance of salty with the rest of the sweet salad, and the pecans and pretzels add a wonderful crunch to the creamy salad. Enjoy!

Fresh berries taste great straight off the bush; however, sometimes we just need variety. The following recipe for cheesecake bites makes an exciting base for berries of all sorts. They are no-bake, quick, and super tasty!

Looking for a refreshing strawberry dessert? This one takes the cake! I’ve used this recipe for strawberry lemon upside down cake for years, altering it along the way with more strawberries and lemon. YUM! The butter and brown sugar that are added with the strawberries and lemon rind at the bottom of the pan make a delicious strawberry jam-like topping that adds flavor and limits the need for frosting or extra cake decorating. I love to serve the cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or fresh whipped topping. Enjoy!

Rob Last reports, “Strawberry crops continue to develop well with minimal pest and disease pressure so far. Fall vegetables are progressing towards the market. We continue to see pest pressure from caterpillars, and a few isolated aphids have been spotted during scouting. As we progress towards the holiday season, scouting of crops remains of vital importance to catch insect infestation and disease progression early for treatments to be effective.”

Rob Last reports, “Strawberry crops in the area are looking good with good crown development. We are seeing open flowers and some fruit set based on warmer conditions. These crops are cause for some concern as we are likely to see damage from forecast cold snaps. There is evidence of botrytis (gray mold) in crops on cold damaged flowers and fruit. Sanitation can really help to mitigate the spread of the disease. Spider mites remain active and in places are requiring treatment. Remember to avoid pyrethroids for mite control as these can flare mite populations.”

Happy New Year! We hope everyone had a great holiday season and is off to a good start in 2021. We have several virtual grower meetings coming up over the next two months, so keep an eye on the “Upcoming Events” page for info. Also, don’t forget the Southeastern Regional Fruit and Vegetable conference kicks off virtually this week, and it’s not too late to register.

This will be the final update of 2020. We will pick it back up on 1/4/21. Be sure to keep an eye on the upcoming events tab, and give us a call if you need anything. Happy Holidays from the SC Grower team! We hope everyone takes some time to enjoy the season, and may 2021 bring you good health, great family time, and as always…prosperous fields!

Zack Snipes reports, “After a long Thanksgiving nap, I was able to waddle out in the fields and look at some strawberries. We have had some really good strawberry growing weather especially considering most folks got their plants out somewhat late this year. We need some cold weather to slow them down a bit in places. I have seen a tiny bit of plant collapse and death in some spots within the fields. It is very important to send these plants into our lab to get a positive identification of the pathogen. Phytophthora crown rot and anthracnose crown rot can cause similar symptoms but are managed differently. For information on how to submit a sample during COVID times, click here. I am also keeping my eye on a good bit of leaf spotting in some fields to make sure it’s not the new disease, Neopestalotiopsis. I don’t think we have it yet, but being proactive is better than being reactive. More information on that disease can be found here.”

Dr. Matt Cutulle reports, “Burndown herbicide efficacy can be reduced in colder weather, especially systemic products such as glyphosate (Reduced translocation in the cold means herbicide does not move through the plant as much).”

Rob Last reports, “Vegetable crops are growing out of the impacts of frost well. There is active Alternaria in places on brassica crops. Insect activity in vegetable crops in the area remains low. Strawberry crops are moving well, with a few spider mites and aphids being observed. Remember, if mite treatment is needed, use a specific miticide to target the pest to avoid flaring populations. If you need a second pair of eyes to help scout, then please give me a shout.”

Zack Snipes reports, “I haven’t been out in the fields lately due to all of the rain. Hopefully, it will dry out some this week as we really need some bluebird sky days. If and when you are able to get out in the strawberry fields, it is time to put out boron. Boron helps with flower and fruit development. If you miss this application, you will have lots of “bull nose” fruit in a few weeks. We recommend 1/8 lb of actual boron. Please see the picture for calculations of different products. Be extremely careful with mixing, calibrating, and applying boron as boron is a great herbicide if overapplied. Boron can be sprayed or run through the drip system.