February 8, 2018

It has been a few years now that our strawberry bed bit the dust. They just couldn’t handle the extremes that the year 2011 brought their way.

I suspect it was a number of things that year that brought their demise. January started off with the typical sine curves weather (warm and cold fronts) but nothing very extreme. This all changed when February arrived. 

The first week of February brought some severe cold (down to 1.5 degrees) with a warm up into the 40’s then another dive the second week down to 4 degrees. Once this was out of the weather’s system the mercury was soring with triple digit temperatures within 3 to 4 months. To add insult to injury it was a very dry year with only a little over 4 inches recorded that year (this fell during one week). This was also a very windy year and due to the dryness, there were a lot of fires. It felt like Alpine was under siege. There were two very large fires one to the east of town and then the one to the west.

All this combined together made for a very challenging year. One good thing due to the dryness there were no bugs that year. Eggs just could not hatch (2012 made up for this)

2011 was the last year that I exclusively hose end watered. Watering would start at 2:30 AM and be completed by early afternoon only to start over again that night.

With the freeze, severe wind, heat, abnormal dryness and me (more than likely) not able to deliver adequate hydration, the strawberries gave up the ghost. At the time it meant just one less bed to water (this was a relief)

Needless to say, I was not sad to see 2011 in my rear-view mirror. Because of the duress 2011 was a huge learning year. More on that at another time.

My strawberries were given to me and most likely they had been given to that person too, so there was no way of knowing what variety they were. What I do remember they were a day-neutral variety. This means they were everbearing. Everbearing tend to be a smaller fruit but produce longer through the year. Unlike the June bearing which tend to produce larger fruit over a shorter period of time. Personally, I think the everbearing varieties tend to be more flavorful than their June bearing cousins. Maybe because they are not as hybridized?

Needless to say, in warmer years I was able to harvest berries year-round. What a wonderful addition to my morning cereal. This ended in 2011.

Now that I have a drip system to water, I am going to give strawberries another whirl.

I am switching things up in the garden. Because the beds on the east side of the garden have a shallow soil horizon I have transplanted my asparagus to these locations. I will be interested to see how it does. At least I will not have to attempt digging these beds and I can always mulch with more compost. Moving the asparagus has opened a bed and yes this will become the new strawberry bed. These too like their predecessors will be ever bearing. With luck their might be some for sale, that is if they are not all quality control tested.

It is nice to be able to get back out in the garden. It almost felt like I had to get reacquainted with an old friend. What with the severe cold that we had, the garden just was not growing. It really deserved having a little time to regrow.  My newest chard bed still hasn’t recuperated but from it next week. Luckily, I have an older bed to harvest from. This bed will be later this spring transitioned into a winter squash bed.

Tomatoes are hardening off and will be out planted next week. Yes, there are blossoms on the peas. Maybe peas soon. I am contemplating if I want to sow an early bed of beans, this would be two to three weeks early.

Anyway, it is nice to see some warmer weather sans the huge temperature swings. I hope this trend will continue.