Is there anything greater!

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Is there any joy greater then this! sucking on the first dead ripe strawberry glistening red under the stormy blue skies of the first day of June.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

Answers

I totally agree, Tren, I, however, do not have your willpower, and have not, as yet, allowed any 3/4 ripe strawberry to stay on long enough to finish ripening, tee-hee!!! They are wonderful! I should have planted strawberries years ago, I planted another 25 this year, planted 75 last year, Ozark Beauties, everbearing, what kind do you have?

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

You people are just downright cruel. Those of us without strawberry patches now feel badly neglected, the least you could do is mail out some samples. Now if those strawberrys were dipped in chocolate I'd be knocking on your door by now. Mean, just plain mean to tease us like this. Rick

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

Well I'll just whisper this then..........I've been eating about 50 a day for a while now, some days about 100.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

Cindy, how many plants did you start out with to get that many a DAY? Wow, will my 100 plants eventually produce that much too, boy, a hundred a day, wonderful!

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

Annie, I started out with 12 plants 3 years ago, and just planted all the runners into other beds. I have a row about 3 foot wide and 60 foot long or so, thick, thick with plants, from just planting the runners last year. Now I'm starting on another row with runners from that row, and I can't even imagine how many runners I will have this year. I'll have to sell allot of them. We had a perfect spring and summer last year, and the strawberries grew like mad. Allready this year are foot long runners off the new bed! Steve thinks I'm nuts.

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001


Annie, We have All Star, Ozark Beauties sound interesting, maybe we should plant some of those! I know what ya mean about eating them three forths of the way ripe! After all you have to beat the slugs, the ants, the birds and the kids to them. We have been eating bowlfulls of them, three forths of the way ripe,but Yesterday when I found a hidden one dead juicy ripe, I thought for a minute that I had died and gone to heaven. Hmmmm.

Sorry Rick, but really you must plant some! Do! I overheard some people the other day going on about the good strawberrys that they got at the grocery store, oh my goodness! They don't even know what a true strawberry is! How rich I feel, how honered, how queenly, because I have strawberrys in my patch! My house may be humble, my clothes may be worn, but no one can hurt me with pridefull scorn, because the juice of a ripe strawberry my mouth has worn! grinning Tren

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001


Rick, and anyone else is cordially invited to come to my house and eat all the #$**&%^ strawberries you like, while I go put myself in traction!! I have been picking 70 quarts a day and can't keep up with the patch. My usual people who pick for me can't this year; and other than Cass and Mike and Phyllis, none of my friends have taken me up on my offer to come pick for free. They'd rather go to the store and pay for them. The store has been selling out of my berries and has a waiting list - and he is charging $1.59 a pound for them! I may have to go back to U-pick and on farm sales - Pop can't pick anymore but says he could handle U-Pick. My coffee is done, so I'd better go grab a cup and head back out to the patch - you all enjoy those berries!!

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001

All I can say Tren is YES!!!! Warmed by the sun and washed by the rain. Wealth is really a matter of perspective now isn't it.

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001

They are long over and done with here, and before I got my fill, too.

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001

Hey Polly, how much is the store giving you per quart? If I was near by I'd love to help. Sorry I'm so far away. That sounds like good money for strawberrys.

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001


$1.10 a pound; and a quart box (heaping) weighs about a pound and a half or so, level box, about a pound. I put 4 quarts in each cardboard beer box and they average $6 to me each box. On farm sales, I have a legal for trade scale, but didn't get it tagged this year, so I am selling by the quart - 75 cents U-pick, $1.25 I-pick - and that is cheaper than most others. I'm only selling on farm to old folks who can't get out and pick their own. Young, healthy folks who are too lazy to pick their own can darn well pay the store's price - that way I don't have to look at the lazy-bones! I get beer boxes and food boxes from the store to put the berries in for sale, as commercial 4 qt. boxes would cost me about 80 cents apiece, and I don't want to pass that cost on to the customer. I pay $75/1000 plants plus shipping; and use no chemical weed, pest or disease control, preferring to rely on crop rotation, tilling and hand weeding. 1000 plants gives me 21 rows, 75-100 feet long. I can pick 4 rows a day by myself - I have almost twice as many rows as I should have!! I just got 20 qts. from one row, and I threw away as many berries as I picked as I had not been able to get to them soon enough. (The chickens love rotten berries!) Depending on the weather, I pick each row every third day or every other day for a good three weeks. Do my berries make me money? Yes, they do. Do I get mean as hell during berry season? Yes, I do! (Now you folks who are waiting for e-mail replys know why you haven't got them - I'm feeling too mean to trust myself to write!!) I know this is more answer than you asked for, but I really do enjoy growing berries. Really. I do. I mean it. Honestly. ;o)

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001

Speaking of strawberries...(as I was just out in the garden, trying to get some weeding and bed prepping done in between rain showers)...

My strawberries have gone nuts. I mean the plants. They are huge...the leaves must be the width of my hand across. No berries yet....I can't see the blossoms anymore! I have done nothing except weed them this year. My raspberries are growing like that, too. You would think I overfertilized with nitrogen or something. Should I have dug them up and moved them or something? Or do you think having the poultry yard next to them is creating some osmotic movement? (sounds cool so I had to write it. Don't even know if that's a word, much less a concept. Sounds like some nasty emanation from Donny and Marie!)

You guys should be drying up pretty soon. I'm almost positive the rain is all here now. Thanks ever so much...but I am curious about the strawberries! I have grown them for years and never have had this happen.

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001


Settle down there tigger,settle down.It can't last much longer.You can make it.I know you can. I have confidence in you.

Did that help any? Now, don't you throw those strawberries at me.Oh,Ok,go ahead.If it makes you feel better.And,I can use them!

So what you are saying is that you think of Donnie and Marie as chickenshit,huh,Sheepish? Did I get that right? Funny.

Sounds like all the rain earlier gave your berries a sip of manure tea from your chicks. You sure do have a lush growing climate,even if it does rain too much.And you can hold on to that rain for a while now,if you would.We're pretty well hydrated ,now.

Or I bet those berries have been genetically engineered w/o your knowledge.Yep,that's probably it.I'm sure of it.You think?

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001


Poor PollY! It's so hard to believe that nobody will come and pick those strawberrys! I soppose you put an add in the local paper? Berries is one thing that I never have any troble selling, if I put out the sign, they come running, seems like everyone wants fresh berrys. Wow, Polly if they are causing you this much discomfort, my advice would be to just plow them under, I'm serious! "Blessings! TRen

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001

Not an option, Tren!! :o) I have been raising commercial berries for 21 years now...it's in my blood...I can't stop...I need berry...berry...now......

No, seriously; I don't want to stop. After we shut down our commercial orchard, we still had some trees left. Three years ago we pulled them out and I have been reduced to BUYING peaches and apples from others. I put out 4 peach trees this year with Pop's blessing, in fact, he sat and worked with me on the list for our eventual home orchard. Once you've had the real thing, you just can't go back!

I didn't advertise in the (weekly) paper because I didn't know Pop was willing to handle U-pick for me, and I can't do U-pick myself because of my work schedule; tried that - 12 1/2 hour night shift, off at 0730 and home at 0820 or so - would get home and people who can't read the ad would have been there waiting for an hour or so, or worse - out picking just anywhere they wanted. Living way out in the boonies at the end of a dead end road puts paid to just sticking out a sign. Plus, the phone would ring all day with people wanting to pick - not an option with me trying to sleep. And you can't shut the phone off if you are a parent with a teen-age driver - just doesn't happen at my house!

So I accepted that I would pick and just sell to the store, but the berries came on two weeks early - before my vacation and before the kids were out of school, plus rain every darn day - so it's been just a tad bit stressful. No worse than tomato canning season, better than 4-H fair week! And like Sharon says, it will soon be over; and I will lie in the hammock and watch Pop till the rows down to a respectable 12".

And next year, we will advertise U-pick and I will take my vacation a week earlier and we will shut off the phone in the house and the kid will know to call me on the cel if she needs me and it won't rain for three weeks straight and Pop won't sign me up for the garden tour....

Oh wait, I forgot that Sis is planning to get married out here on the farm next June - well, surely THAT won't be stressful!!

I AM fine - really!!

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001



Polly Dear, I was thinking about you while I was out picking my breakfast. How your back must hurt! I am , the truth comes out, usually releaved when strawberry season is over, the raspberrys and black ones seem so much easier to pick! No more crawling on the ground! You are albout near the end of your strawberry season arn't you, I have noticed that you are about 2 weeks ahead of me on most things. Polly do you have any strawberry picking position advice. I am allways trying to find the most comfortable position, and having to stop, stand up and reach to the sky and stretch myself out helps me too. Man, I can't imagine picking as many strawberrys a day as you are! Tren

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001

Plus your working full time! Polly!

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001

Okay, Sharon...you must be right. Donny and Marie were seen genetically modifying my strawberries...my neighbor reports that as correct. I must have been dozing in front of the teevee in my recliner (next to Polly's, while watching the Mariner's games.) How did you know?? Did Nick have some secret surveillance going?

Be careful as they are headed your way and were last heard singing ...."little bit of country and a little bit of rock 'n' roll...." Don't let the lab coats fool you. They mean business.

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001


Sheepish my butt.You are a pistol.You can change you handle to Pistol Packin' Mamma.

Thanks for the heads up.Will continue to keep Nick on the 24 hr surveillance and let you know if anything else untoward occurs at you place. You just relax and get in your nappy time. He'll be watching.

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001


Trendle,

Fresh strawberries are awesome, when I can get any. My 16 mo. old daughter, Ruth, has learned to snag the red berries on sight. Let's just say her eyes work fine. LOL.

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001


Well, the store called and said they had enough berries to get by today, so I said "To heck with it" and decided to focus on the garden. To that end, I called all my neighbors and relatives and friends and said "It's free Sunday - get your butts to the berry patch!" So far, 8 of 20 rows have been picked and I have more folks coming in this afternoon. I'm happy 'cause I'm in the garden, the store is happy, other people are happy 'cause they've got berries and my patch is getting cleaned out for next week. I'm going out to pick some tonight if there are any left and Pop will stem them and we'll make jam tomorrow. So now I'm off to the garden again - dirt therapy rules!!

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001

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