It has been kind of tropical in Minnesota the past few days: one minute it's hot and steamy, and the next minute there's a heavy downpour. Not all that bad for the seeds that are already in the ground and germinating, but it hasn't been so great for getting the rest of the garden in. But I'm not going to complain too much, because, you know, at least it's not snowing!
While the wet weather has kept me from tilling and planting my community garden plot, it has been kind of perfect for working on the strawberry patch, which is completely accessible from the outside boundaries. The strawberries are greening up at a record pace this year, so it was perfect timing to get in there and clean out as much of the old leaves and stray blades of grass as I could before they started to produce again. It didn't take much time in the strawberries to notice how close they already are to blooming:
Or to find a few strawberry runners that decided to root in some interesting places - I'm always amazed at how little soil the runners need to root down!
There were also a few stray strawberry runners that decided to root in other more inconvenient places, like the lawn or the pathway between the strawberries and raspberries. I pulled those plants out and set them aside to transplant into bare spots in the patch, once the clean up was finished.
Transplanting runners is as simple as wedging out a little hole to pop the roots in and keeping them well watered until they take off (something Mama Nature has taken care of for me this week!).
As I've been working my way from one end of the patch to the other in between rain showers, there are more and more flowers opening up each day. It's shaping up to be a pretty great strawberry crop this year. Now all I have to do is be patient for those first red berries to appear!
Labels: strawberries
