trudging along..trying to make hay

Here come the martins...home for the evening...It's been a testy Spring.
Rain, rain....too wet to till or plow...or anything else
and the plants in the flats by the greenhouse multiply.
Ive been nursing so many things that are TRYING to hold on until they can be set in the ground...very frustrating.
But life goes on. We'll see what we can do this weekend. In the meantime, here is a picture or two; no, you can't have the new bees story or the clover pics - because Will has promised to tell you all about that.

ok. that. Now for the 'you just can't keep a good plant down' department...so MANY things will be with us till the end of time. It matters not whether we want these things....we planted them and they'll be here and too bad. We even try to discourage some things but forget it. Last year it was the zillions of evening primrose plants everywhere. I mean Everywhere. This year it's the stupid loofas (sorry loofas, but I mean REALLY). Do i dig up hunks of them and try to move them? what? I mean, they'll be plowed under in any case. But it is admirable, you have to admit. The fence is gone and the ground has been tilled at least once, but here they are.
And then there is the Lemon Grass. Seemed like an exotic idea at the time...It's on the fence-line, and it grows really tall in a big clump. Then it dies and makes a huge bush of dead stalks. Then Will tries to get rid of it. Burning only burns the fence - we've figured that one out.
what now? who knows..I'd like to keep it but it's all gnarly; dead stalks, new growth and I must admit to you, there's a big poison ivy problem in there...

Then we have accidental happiness in the form of things that just spring up and it makes you smile ; and we try to let them do their thing and go to seed so it will happen again next year.
Several years ago we planted a row of coreopsis. This is a wildflower...I first saw them in Hattiesburg Mississippi and they would grow in all the ditches. Just beautiful. Then we saw some seed at the Texas Wildflower Farm and we bought that...of course, what with the good soil etc., we wound p with this crazy hedge of giant coreopsis and it would try to fall over so like a couple of idiots we got out there and tied them up...tied the whole row up! It was silly, looking back. But it sure was beautiful. And so now, every year, they spring up on the outskirts of the garden and we let them be.And, in the herb beds (which we are in the process of tearing up and re-planting but for a couple of things), the ox-eyed daisies which were NEVER supposed to grow down here but they do.
And..lest we forget...the sunflowers. We grow rows of then in the field every year. So of course in the spring they just jump up all over the place. I think it's nice that (apparently) Will has gone around these few volunteers.Oh, wait - one more thing: we'll be setting out cucumbers in this row tomorrow, but I just might leave this guy alone: ha. a potato plant. why not?

Dinner

Will said...' take a picture and tell everyone 'it rained half an inch or worms'! well...Will found these super worms while digging around to plant some perennials. We need worms just about every day and this is why:

This won't take many words...it's kind of self-explanatory; our little black cat, who was dumped off here last winter, has become the main cat. Although this may piss off other cats, it cannot be helped....He had no name.....we called him 'little kitty' because that is how we got him to come onto the carport in the beginning. But, in the end, that is a stupid name for a cat.

He is a talker; this you know if you have been with this blog for a while. He says 'Mouw!' He says it quite a lot. So, I said to Will, 'We should name him 'Mao Zedong' and Will says...'no...we should name him "Mousy Tongue!" so there you have it. He is quite the 'mouser', after all. A real killer.
Every evening, he runs to the little bridge over the ditch, and then to the dock, in hopes that we will take a few minutes out of our lives and catch him a tiny fish. or two . or three, maybe. And here is the daily scenario:
WAITING

WATCHING


GETTING

...and there you have it.

This and That; Cleanup Time

I've taken a picture of this and that over the past month; and I wanted to purge...so here's the news before I re-format the camera and we move into the late late spring...
we had one day, ONE day, of most excellent kite-flying weather. And I tried to take pictures of kites flying way up high...but they all looked like those UFO pictures...like this:
So, I just waited until we brought them inside, so you could actually SEE the kites. Will bought me the butterfly kite for my birthday a year ago; you know, around here, we have, like, two days, maybe three a year that are actually bona-fide 'good kite days'.
so THAT.

Also, I have actual PROOF that tomatoes are in the ground and coming along and here you go:
Now...sometimes you just wander around with the camera and you see 'stuff'. I love weeds. Sorry; can't help it. Actually., I was trying to get 'clover' pictures with bees on the clover and that was a heroic effort. Sorry; bees are small and my zoom doesn't work worth a darn and so too bad. But I got a couple of pictures of beautiful weeds along with clover and I just wanted to share.
and the wildness around the pond; letting everything go to seed before we mow it all down.So.. there you have it, or sort of: nothing important, just this and that. We've been looking out of the upstairs window, admiring the dirt, which is something one does in the springtime; Will's been tilling and the dirt is a beautiful sight after months of scraggly weeds. He planted eight rows of corn today, and he said it made him feel like he had a new lease on life. yes, that is pretty cool.

An Owl and Some Carrots

I had this vision of the day - we all do that; I thought I would spend my Sunday fiddling around with my herbs - I have flats ready to be planted etc. etc....but no. Will asked me would i check out the carrot row....he needed to plow and maybe there were some carrots from the fall and maybe we should check first. So, last night I said ' well sure! that will be my job tomorrow!' Stupid me. Yeah, there were carrots, alright. LOTS AND LOTS.I went out there and didn't see the manure fork, so I got the hay fork, which is kind of the same thing, only not as tough, and has ten prongs rather than four, and I kind of started pulling and digging and filled up the 'muck bucket', and saw that I had only gone maybe five feet down the row and I thought, ' uh-oh'. And I brought my first haul to the carport. Then I washed the carrots and laid them out to dry and realized I had many, many trips ahead of me. Then I started to get worried. I dug carrots while eyeing the strawberries and I knew there was NO WAY I would do all of this AND pick strawberries too. Will was very busy doing a lot of other important farm things. What now?
So I took carrot pictures and went inside and sent an emergency alert to our email list. Thank goodness for our clientele!

By the time I was washing and sorting another batch of carrots, the vehicles started coming up the drive. We had plenty of folks to pick berries and everybody bought carrots too!!!yea!

It was a good day. There are still bundles of carrots in the fridge outside, but the strawberries are picked AND sold. yes.

Ok, Time For A Break

I looked at this blog and thought...my goodness what a lot of pictures of bushes and such! Of course, it is that time of year - I mean, that's what there is to look at, after all. But to break up the bush monotony, I thought I would offer a couple of pictures of our cat 'Crazy'. only because I kind of feel sorry for him. He's still crazy and the big bad cat. But his supremacy is being challenged by the tiny little black cat we found in the weeds last year...who has become the king-of-cats around here (for many reasons). So, I give you two pictures of the fabulous Crazy. He still tears up Will's hands and arms when they play. I personally cannot play with him because he is too rough for me. As a matter of fact - Will has to wear an oven mitt when the play gets serious; or when his co-workers may wonder what's up with all of those scratches on his arms. So Crazy's still 'got it', so to speak. And he still wishes he was a dog, not a cat. He lays around in the yard with the dogs..likes dog snacks and likes to be brushed roughly with a wire brush. But, let's face it...his days of dominance are waning. What a great cat. I picked him out when he was running around with a litter on our friend's blueberry farm. I thought ....I'd really like a good orange cat! By the way, does anybody out there know of an orange cat that was NOT a male? Just wondering.

Yes, I Would Like To Sit Right There

In this year of the 'clover mayhem'...I mow, but I just can't bring myself to mow all of the crazy clover. It seems there must be 100 times more clover than usual. Used to be, we would just be really glad about that. These days, the first thought is 'hmmm...things are different this year...hmmm' And along with bird songs you never heard before, and I didn't see the robins, although surely they were here; it's hard to know whether to be happy or worried. So I choose happy. I mean, why not? We can all worry ourselves into oblivion, or we can enjoy what is presented to us. No bees? hey, get some bees! That's what WE did.

P.S. Bee Update: The hives Will moved to the blueberry farm are back home: I don't think he'll be doing that again. The bees were unhappy about being moved around. When they first got home, they would fly around and try to enter the wrong hive, and everybody would be mad! But they have settled down and I think they've figured it out. In the menatime, Will got his 'russian' hive. Because one cannot mix them with the Italians, the new hive is out at the blueberry farm.

ok, Things Are Coming Along

...wet garden and all.
Every Spring, the same story..."it's too wet to plow!" and "We'll NEVER get this field planted!"
And then it dries up some, and then we do.
It's a frustrating time here in south Louisiana. It's been raining JUST enough to keep us from planting. Will did get an opportunity to plow...once...but once of course is not enough. It must be done two or three times, then rows pulled up etc and etc.

In the meantime, yes, we have some strawberries..some days, way too many! I must have picked 1000 of them yesterday (and I kid you not).
But it is hard to let our beloved customers know. Because it's an every two day or so event. And that's all there is at the moment. And we would HATE to have more people want them than we had berries for. So we store and cut and freeze and every now and then a customer says 'are there some for me?' and we say, well sure!
In the meantime, as we wait for the moment when we can go out and actually plant, thank you, I have made many flats, mostly herbs...because i cannot stand the anticipation! I MUST have herbs, the sooner the better! and this is a picture that is probably two weeks old, but here you go..I have the usual suspects: Basil: Italian, Mammoth, Lemon...I have Sage (because you have to replant every two years or so) and Oregano (even thought it never is quite right) and Marjoram (because Will is a new fan of that) and of course other interesting things: Bee Balm and Bergamot (because the herb beds have been plowed (ouch) and Catnip and Hyssop (yeah, right and what is that?) and Statice (see 'your dried flowers') and I would have seeded the Flax, but Will encouraged me to wait and direct-seed and my friend who spins yarn wants to know what type I am planting, but as far as I can tell, it's not about 'type', it's about how far apart you plant the plants....close for seed, (as in flax-seed), far apart for cloth but I wanted seed but now I'm thinking ...hey - linen? So, this and that.
And, finally, the Thyme bed had to be ripped up (R.I.P) because I could not keep the Bermuda Grass out of it, so a new generation of thyme plants is at hand and I have no idea where I'm going to put them, but one must have thyme, right?And so..things are moving along, although slower than we would like. We do have an eager customer ready to bring her kids fishing this weekend and that is a good thing...it should be fun.
As we await the 'big planting' we have flowers and things that are being very showy....it's a start.

Redbud at Dusk

Everybody's redbud trees are glorious this time around...even ours. Just the one, actually. There were two. Because Will plants two of things, always (or so it seems). And they have to be one on this side and one on that side, exactly the same distance apart. I'm not a big fan of the 'equal trees' thing. Or bushes, or anything else. But that's ok. Because the redbuds have decided they're just not going to cooperate with that train of thought. The one on the left of the porch is beautiful, even though it has to lean way out from the oak tree, looking for more sun. But the one on the right keeps dying. Well, that's rediculous; actually, there was one, and it died, and then Will planted another and it hasn't chosen to put out any flowers or growth yet this spring - so, maybe it is dying too. Maybe he'll be forced to plant something else there in that spot...if he can stand it. We'll see if he insists on setting out redbud tree #3. I'll let you know.

In the meantime, those big fat stupid bumblebees are all over it, and won't let anyone near it. It belongs to them, don't you know. I've never actually been attacked by one of those bees, but they do bump into you.

P.S. Ants in the strawberries...not around every plant, but around enough of them to be worriesome. hmmm.

Early March walk-around

I thought the wildflowers were going to be a here-today/ gone-tomorrow kind of thing...obviously I was wrong about that. Every week there seem to be more of them and new ones...makes me think we should have just spread seed all over the entire place. Man, wouldn't that be something....
So, we just kind of wandered around with the camera, checking out springtime happenings; in case you aren't totally sick of looking at close-ups of wildflowers here's another one for you:
Now, I can get all excited about multiple pictures of wildflowers - at least at the moment - because we spread the seed and here they are and it's a beautiful thing. But it reminds me of my mother, in a way. She was a daylilly nut. Well, that's not fair. Let me clarify: she raised and bred daylilies and was a big member of the Hemerocallis Society. (I keep trying to spell 'daylilly' and the spell-check just wants me to change it to Doolally and I'm not going to do that...so I will check on this later.) But I digress. She would take a billion pictures of all of her different lilies and dad would just roll his eyes because he could NOT sit through a slide-show of this, and they all looked exactly alike to him. And when there was a society meeting, all the lily fanatics would come over and they would auction off little bundles of roots and of course these actually DID look all alike, but he never got it.
Now we continue our walk:
last weekend it was beautiful and warm and work-outside weather. I went around with gloves and hoe and shovel and pruning shears, uncovering surprises...things that were coming up from below: mint and tarragon and lemon balm...the mint beds Will built for me one Mother's Day several years ago are holding up: but the bermuda grass, the evil, evil Bermuda Grass...it creep up and crawls between the boards and SO wants to take over these beds. But I get in there with a shovel and hoe and pry it up and rip it out with my bare hands...and then there are the ant beds in the corners. But so far, so good.
The Mexican Tarragon can be counted on to spring up from the bottom of the plants every spring; I know there are other varieties of tarragon, but this does best here, and is every bit as pungent and culinary-worthy as any other type. Pretty soon, these little leaves will rise up and form long stalks and hold their own until next fall and the first frost: And then there is the lowly lemon-balm; I only say this because it has limited uses, as far as I know. As with other lemony herbs, you'd love to do all manner of things with it, but let's face it. It smells exactly like Lemon Pledge. So, as far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't want tea from it, not really. There are so many other lemon-smelling herbs that will do nicely for that purpose. On the other hand, I have been making all of our cleaning agents for months now, and perhaps it will serve well for the furniture polish. This year, I plan to see about that.The Rosemary is blooming. It is beautiful, but I am thinking about it...i have had a couple of rosemary beds. I set out little tiny plants all in a row - they explode into the scenario you see here: it lasts a couple of years more - then the whole thing begins to die; I suppose that is a life-span issue. I haven't really thought about it before, but from the looks of things, the big bloom may be the beginning of the end for this bed. It takes a couple of years for the plants to actually offer this display. We shall see.
And finally: we have our Offerings: something old, something new - kind of a wedding thing. The carrots have been in the ground since October. They are holding out, but it has been as very wet winter; we should go ahead and dig them all out now. The strawberries, also put in in the fall, are just now offering their bounty. It's all good.

ok, that's uncalled for...

...so the wind is blowing really hard, so you move the BIG PLASTIC OWL off of the dock because, let's face it....when the wind knocks him over his head comes off and then you run the risk of the owl head blowing into the pond -not good.
So, you move him to the carport, where he sits amongst last fall's remaining pumpkins and every time you look out there you think there's a cat sitting in the middle of the pumpkins but it's not - it's the BIG PLASTIC OWL.
Anyway - so the dock is unprotected and the ducks come and sit on the dock at night and they leave - well, we've talked about that BUT THIS TIME they have left a gift!
Trouble is, after Will takes this picture and we all have a good laugh, he puts it in with the eggs in the icebox, and I don't know which one is the duck egg and he won't tell me. So, I have to examine the container of eggs and look at them carefully. Not that I mind eating a duck egg, necessarily,l and it is awfully fresh, no doubt - I just would like to know, that's all!

Painted Bee Boxes All In A Row

A good weekend's worth of work, the bee boxes come unassembled and unpainted. With the three farm hives building up gentle Italian workers for our spring clover, and a colony (or nuc, for nucleus) of hearty Russians in the works, I must try to stay ahead of their housing (and honey storage) needs. A lot of nails, glue, and three coats of exterior enamel have these hive supers ready for the honey flow. Now, there are only 81 honey comb frames (nine per box) to go. Yikes! What have I gotten into.

Thais wanted me to explain what the Russian bees are about, and I will try to be brief. If you've been following the blog, you know we got into bees last spring because there were so few honeybees around the farm. One of the reasons for the dearth of bees is that so many of the native honeybee populations were decimated by a number of honeybee pests imported from overseas. One of the worst of these, the varroa mite, plagues the bees, attaching to their brood while still developing in their cells and holding on through the adult bees lives unless groomed or knocked off. If the infestation becomes too great, the hive will lose so many bees that it will die off or swarm away. Commercial beekeepers, and many hobbyists, keep the mites in check by treating their hives with miticides (essentially poisons), which are hard on the bees and can leave residual traces in the honey and comb. Can you say organic farm? It won't happen here.

Hence, the Russians. Unlike the Italian honeybees (also imported to America), which had never been exposed to varroa mites, Russian bee stock comes from the same part of the world as varroa mites (eastern Russia-western China) and are thus better adapted through behaviors (removal of mites from infected cells, grooming, etc.) that keeps the mites in check. They do so much better, in fact, that chemical treatment is not needed. So less than a year into beekeeping and I am already trying to adapt to the ever-changing insect world. By the way, I will not get rid of my Italian ladies, not directly anyway. I will eventually requeen the hives with Russian queens and my Italians will slowly develop a decidedly Slavic accent. In the mean time, there are non-chemical tricks to limit the damage to the Italian hives. I will miss my more gentle Italians, but the honey will still be just as sweet.

Spring is early but we'll take it!

I remember, back in the fall, driving the pickup truck slowly, oh-so-very-slowly, round and round and up and down the field while Will sat on the tailgate, spreading clover seed and saying (way too frequently) "Too fast! Slow Down! Turn Left! Turn Right! Not THAT way!" What I DON'T remember is driving round and round only the outside edge of the field...but if you look at it now, you'd think we only seeded the edges and not the inner part...thats the way the clover chose to come up. There is some in the middle, but not a lot. The edge looks great, though! There'll still be plenty for the bees (all are very busy, by the way). Will has plans to take a couple of the hives over to a friends organic blueberry farm when the bushes bloom. He also wants a new hive of 'Russian Bees'. Don't ask. I have no idea what they are or how they are different. If I can encourage Will to post here, maybe he'll enlighten all of us.
And then we have the strawberries (yea!). Three 75-foot rows. That's a lot of strawberry plants. As you can see, they are blooming and setting. Will can say 'now don't get too excited' all he wants, but as we say down here...'me, I'm excited!' It is true. Many times, a crop looks fabulous but the weather turns or a pest enters the scene, and suddenly the crop takes a downturn. And we would hate to get our customers all anticipating a bumper crop of berries only to wind up with a lot of disappointed folks. I have to say, though, we have never had a strawberry crop that didn't perform, and I don't expect this year will be any different. It's so great to have SOMETHING in February in the garden. The only way for that to happen is to get out there in November and make sure you get those plants in the ground. We don't get to it every year. The window is fairly small for strawberry planting, and you have to locate the little plants and have somebody put them aside for you. P.S.; ditto for garlic, and we did that too! Of course, garlic doesn't look as exciting as a little plant full of strawberries, but it's a great thing to have a lot of.

Wildflowers...it must be spring

Will seeded wildflowers around the pond and into the little tiny woods area beside it...last fall. And here they are...as advertised; we were joking about seeding into flats or buying expensive annuals, and really - they are just pumped up versions of these...as you can see: alyssum, snapdragons and on and on.
Ah, yes...even the Willow trees know it is Spring...

A Fish In The Hand..2008 version

A year and several months later...
from tiny little things to big fat perch; and I argued against the hybrid perch - for what I thought were pretty good reasons. But these are beautiful. Me, I like my perch fried whole - and that means there is a point beyond which they are really too big for that; but maybe not. But maybe outside rather than in the kitchen. We have a whole pond full of these guys now...I think we;re going to have a spring and summer full of fish frying parties.

The Pitiful Louisiana Freeze-Scare

OK. So, it's going to 'freeze' and we all freak out. Of course, we can be forgiven for this because

(a) it hardly ever freezes and
(b) we actually have crops that will be killed by this.

The seasonal crops, well, that's just the way it goes. Plant some more stuff next month. It's a roll of the dice. But then there are the long-term issues. Like fruit trees. We already know not to put the Meyer Lemon trees in the ground. That would just be asking for it. So we move to ever-bigger pots each year. And we haul them into-the-house; out-of-the-house etc. etc. We think this is worth the effort. I mean, hey - it's January, and there are lemons in the living room!
But there are the 'Louisiana fruits', right? Satsumas, yes. Figs, yes. Both must be planted in the ground for the long term, and both must be protected for the 48-hour nastiness of freezing temps we get once a year, maybe twice. And so, last week, we knew we must prepare. Will thought about it...sheets draped? Plastic? Both? and then there is the wind. Would either or both blow off? And what of the middle of the day? Sometimes it warms up so much you have to uncover them, then cover them back up. And, if covered by too many layers, they will drop their leaves for lack of sun. So...we have (TADAAA) the Satsuma Teepees!
This is the skeleton only, of course. We kept the Satsumas in pots for two years, or maybe it was three, before we finally put them in the ground. A couple of years from now, they'll be too big for this, but for now it will do. I mean, 24 DEGREES! Thats' big stuff for down here. A layer of plastic, then a sheet, and there you have it! (notice the very lazy dogs in the background)...and now we get to the 'totally lame' part. You know, we don't get ice. I mean, the natural kind. So, if we want to see ice, we have to make our own. We are not the only ones guilty of this, I know that. But as long as you're keeping a little bit of water running, you might as well try to make something pretty and icy for the morning after. We've done better, I must say, but here is our pitiful ice event...don't laugh! Besides, the whole thing is so last week...today and yesterday and the day before that..70 degrees. Now all we have is a very soggy sad garden. However, the carrots look good, the Collards can take anything, and the spinach is all for me! (sadly, there's not enough for the public...maybe early spring for another round).

Al The Owl

...standing watch on the dock.

Actually, I bought this 'big plastic owl with rotating head' for Will for Christmas. This is because, last June, he kept asking me to "find a big plastic owl to put out in the corn". Well, not only did I know that the town of Zachary had no big plastic owls, but i wasn't willing to drive all over Baton Rouge in search of a big plastic owl. And then, while online shopping, looking for a couple of (hopefully artistic and not too expensive) metal cranes to put out by the pond...there he was, lo and behold...the afore-mentioned 'big plastic owl'.
There is a reason he is keeping watch on the dock. There are some very ugly and quite annoying muskovy ducks that like to come over from the pond next door and hang around. That's not so bad, really...but they like the dock and they roost on the dock and anybody that has seen what they leave behind when roosting on a dock can understand why it's icky. And messy. And hard to clean up. And Will was dutifully out there shooting them with the bottle-rocket-gun-contraption-thing he has...previously used to scare off herons and egrets and the like. But these ducks just didn't care. It didn't scare them in the least. He even hit one with a bottle rocket (I think that was an accident but I'm not sure). and it didn't even make him jump (hardly). and it certainly didn't make him fly away. But they hate the owl. So they just roost on the fountain instead. Which means you have to turn on the fountain periodically to chase them off. I'm sure this will be an on-going saga. But, for now, the owl is at least keeping them off the dock. I wish they'd just go home!
UPDATE: Well, it's dark now, New Year's Night, freezing cold, and Will has been stalking the ducks...he spent probably most of an hour shooting them directly with bottle rockets...there's still one who won't go home. So he is off to East Feliciana Parish to score some larger ammo before all of the fireworks stands close up for the season!

A Thanksgiving Table

I don't know what got into him....but Will spent a good part of Thanksgiving morning out in the carport...arranging all the fall vegetables onto a table. The table sagged with bounty (literally. It was quite beautiful, but I knew that, as cold as it was that day, folks would only see it in passing on their way to the door! No matter. It is indeed a work of art.
And one more Thanksgiving note: We wanted to use as much garden produce as possible for our Thanksgiving dinner. So, after all other menu items had been decided, Will got a wild hair and decided to make 'gumbo z'herbes'. This is a traditional louisiana gumbo made with 7 greens. Actually, his was made with 10 greens (!) A thing of beauty, but I must say, it has been many years since I have washed each and every leaf pulled from an entire BATHTUB of greens!
That is all for now. Will has interesting post-frost garden pics on his camera, but I haven't made it into that store yet....

Well, it's November

Down here, that means it's cool at night, sometimes very cool....and you wear a jacket to work or a sweater and then it heats up during the day and you forget that it's fall. Then the sun goes down. And, at night, the grass is wet and cold. And the air is dry. Some of the crops love this; the lettuce and other greens, the broccoli. But you think about the fall tomatoes, and the peppers, the basil and other things that will go with the first frost...which will be soon, maybe. You never know. It's kind of sad, in it's way. I see the flowers. When you walk near the zinnias they explode with butterflies. It cannot last.
I went out in the dark tonight with a big flashlight...trudged across the yard and into the garden to pick basil. Will was making a pizza and this was all he asked of me...it was little enough.
I clipped the middle out of one big plant and the scent rose and I stopped and put it to my nose. I remember this spring, when I picked the first basil and I thought...I haven't smelled this smell in 6 or 7 months, maybe more. It was heaven. So I tried to savor it out there in the dark.

Today, Will planted the garlic. It will over-winter, to be harvested in late spring. We will try to plant strawberries next week. Same thing. If you're not with it in november, you simply don't have strawberries in the spring. Wish us luck. We are overwhelmed with other things, and sometimes our plans don't come to fruition (so to speak). But the berries are a must. We have a 2-year-old grand-daughter and I believe it is imperative that she wander into the garden next spring to gorge on strawberries.

At least I know that these little greens will be with us, frost and freezes and everything, until we throw our hands up and plow them under next spring.