Friday Favorite: Strawberry Season
Last night we have our first flush of ripe berries from the garden, they were delicious!
I planted these last year, we have ‘Sparkle’ Junebearing strawberry plants and everbearing ‘Seascape’. I wanted to give overbearing a try to see how they did. Last year they didn’t produce very many berries but it was their first year. We will see how they do this year.
We enjoyed the berries on strawberry shortcake, one of our favorite summer meals. If you’d like the recipe I posted it a few years ago on this post.
Next year we should have even more strawberries, our plants produce lots of runners. I’ll be moving all the ones that come this year to a new spot in the garden. Strawberries do well if they are moved to a new location every 3 years. I plan on adding a new section in the garden before the old one is exhausted so we alway have lots of berries.
What’s your favorite way to enjoy strawberries?
Share this:
Friday Favorite: Strawberries in October
This spring I planted 25 ‘Seascape’ strawberry plants in my garden. They took their time getting settled in and finally started producing a few berries last month. They’re really in the swing of things right now. I’m not the only one growing these beauties, there’s a stand at the farmers market that has had them for the last month as well.
It’s kind of crazy to be harvesting fresh strawberries from my own garden at the end of October. I’m not complaining, a handful of fresh strawberries is just as good in October as it is in June. It’s kind of like the last hurrah of summer before the snow flies!
Do you have any ever bearing strawberries in your garden?
Share this:
Little Yellow Wonder Strawberries
Last year, on a whim, I purchased a packet of ‘Yellow Wonder’ strawberry seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I started the seeds mid-summer and planted them in my garden in the fall.
The plants are compact, about 8-10 inches tall and very lush. I’m using them as a ground cover and edging in the front foundation garden. ‘Yellow Wonder’ is an alpine strawberry, so it doesn’t put off runners. This is why they’re in the front garden, I don’t have to worry about them taking over like some strawberry plants might.
The best part of these strawberries is that they’re everbearing, meaning they’ll bear fruit all summer long and into fall. They started producing a few berries in the spring, when the regular strawberry plants fruited. I wasn’t sure I would like them at that time, the fruit seemed a little mushy and they weren’t producing very many berries. About mid-June things changed. They started producing nicely and the fruit tastes much better, I’m actually quite fond of them now. They have an exotic flavor much like passion fruit, they’re really wonderful topping a salad.
Being able to grow interesting varieties of thing is one of the reasons I garden and grow edible things. I’m quite certain I never would have tasted a yellow strawberry had I not planted them in my own garden. Now I’ll be enjoying these little yellow beauties on my salads all summer long!
Do you have any interesting varieties of fruits or vegetables you’d discovered?
Share this:
Signs of Summer
One of the best signs of summer (besides bare feet) is berry stained hands. I have many fond memories of picking berries when we were at the family cabin so my grandma could make us a black raspberry pie. Of course we ate as many as we picked and rarely had enough pie, perhaps it was my grandma’s way of getting us out of the cabin?
We’ve been picking a berries for a week or so. We have wild black raspberries growing around the edges of the property. We’re trying to cultivate a few more of them because we don’t have a ton yet, but we get enough for salads and for eating fresh.
My mom has loads of wild black raspberries at her house and we often head over there when she’s gotten all she needs. Yesterday we went over for a work day. Brian cut up a tree, then spent the afternoon picking blueberries and black raspberries and my mom and I worked in the garden.
I still have some black raspberries in the freezer from last year, but you can never have too many tucked away for winter. There really is nothing better on a cold winter evening than a steamy black raspberry pandowdy.
Are you picking any raspberries or other berries?
Share this:
Baking Up Some Winter Comfort
pan⋅dow⋅dy (noun) – sliced fruit baked with sugar and spices in a deep dish, with a thick top crust.
A couple weeks ago I got Rustic Fruit Desserts: Crumbles, Buckles, Cobblers, Pandowdies, and More from the library. It’s such a great little book, all the recipes sound wonderful! I’m a big fan of desserts that contain fruit, so this cookbook is right up my alley.
Since my freezer is filled with blueberries, blackberries and wild black raspberries, we really enjoy baking them into lovely cobblers in the winter for light dinners or afternoon snacks. A cup of coffee and a serving of gingered apple and cranberry pandowdy* is all you need on a cold winter evening. I’ll definitely be baking more wonderful things from this cookbook! I have some black raspberries that are begging to be baked into something wonderful.
What’s your favorite kind of dessert: tangy fruit, rich chocolate, sugary sweet…?
*The actual recipe in the cookbook is for gingered pear and raspberry pandowdy, but I had some apples and cranberries that were begging to be used up.
