Strawberries are planted

I received my Strawberry order the day before my big party last weekend and so they stayed in my crisper drawer of my fridge all week. When I got out to the garden, I was a bit surprised to find that while I thought I had ordered 25 strawberry plants,  I had in fact ordered 75. I do not have room for 75 plants. That is the problem with seed catalogs. They make you dream big!

The first step was to trim the roots to 4 inches and to cut off any old leaves or branches.

The work shelf that hubby had built into the Potager came in handy!

After they were all trimmed I had to fit them into the Potager.

I was able to fit in 25 Ozark Beauty strawberries. These are ever-bearing and, according to the directions, should not be allowed to develop runners.

It also said to pinch off the flowers until July 1.

The June bearers took up a bit more room. They have to develop runners and have all their flowers removed this year.  I planted the Annapolis closer together than it said to (about 12") in a row, only having room for 8 plants. I only had room for 8 of the Jewel also, but I tried planting them in a zig-zag to give them the 18" apart it said in the directions. These will be matted beds, meaning they will fill in the spaces between with runners (baby plants) and give me lots of berries next year.

To remember what is where and what I need to do, I put the instructions on a stick and put it next to the fence.

In order to fit in the strawberries, I had to move the Asparagus.

More about that later.

This is the back of the Potager, which is now devoted to strawberries.
I am planning on getting copper tape to try to stop the slugs from getting the berries before I do!


I had a lot of left-over June Bearing Strawberry plants.

So I potted up a bunch in a large pot near my back steps.  I am not trimming off the flowers on these and will happily eat what ever they give me, then, sigh, compost the plants. There are 12 plants, 6 of each, in this pot. (And this picture was taken 4 days after I planted the strawberries - the Jewel strawberries are taking off! In the garden bed also.) The rest of the plants were gifted to a friend who likes to garden. Sharing plants with fellow gardeners is one of the things I like best about gardening.