This is the first year of production for my little strawberry patch and it has been delightful. I can eat my fill of strawberries every day, and three gallons of the red gems have been put in the freezer... so far. Strawberries in December! I prefer whole strawberries to jam, but, who knows? I may make some anyway. The berries are so abundant. This K-State Extension publication provides good info on strawberry cultivation. The varieties in my garden are Earliglow, Surecrop and Eclair. Eclair has been disappointing, so I will remove it and make way for a better variety to be planted in a couple of years. This Mother Earth News article also has some good info on strawberries.
And the kale! The Tuscan kale, aka "lacinato kale," and "dinosaur kale" gives me giant leaves now. The basket in the picture of kale is approximately 20 inches (about 50 centimeters) long, to give you an idea how large some of the leaves are. Lacinato is a beefy kale with a rich flavor and does best in warmer weather. It does not stand up to the cold as well as some other kales, but I still plant it in the fall.
When the kale was still fairly small, a few weeks after I put it in the ground, I surrounded each plant with eggshells to thwart snails and slugs and then fertilized it with some blood meal that had been sitting in the cabinet for a while. I think I got the blood meal for thwarting bean-eating bunnies. I did the same to the broccoli and cauliflower. I don't remember ever having such large lacinato. I've been able to put kale in the freezer, as well as eat it regularly. This kale is under row cover to protect against cabbage white butterflies and their larvae. Collards and kale in another covered bed came down with a serious case of aphids, so the row cover is gone and the aphids mostly got washed away with a hard spray of water. Lady bugs and other aphid eaters are now feasting in that bed.
The first planted lettuce gives an abundance. Such a lot of lettuce from such a small patch. It seems it's always nothing or too much with lettuce. And it started raining just in time. It was a dry spring and I thought I was going to have to spend lots of time on irrigation. But June has started with rain every other day. Like with the lettuce, it seems it is either dearth or too much rain.
And PEAS! Finally, peas again. The cutworms and rabbits have decided to let me harvest peas this year, after refusing to let them grow the last two seasons. Of course, I put a little effort into the process. Yay peas!
