I should really rename this site to the ‘strawberry site’, as I seem to devote a lot of column inches to this fruit. A strawberry plant is a low-growing, flowering plant it produces strawberry fruit. Strawberries are soft, sweet, bright red berries. They are delicious to eat. They can be eaten freshly picked straight from the plant. The fruit can be used in various desserts and can be used to make jam or strawberry drinks.
The Strawberry plant also produce what are known as ‘runners’. These runners will eventually develop their own roots, resulting in a new ‘clone’ plant. Once these roots take in the soil, the runners begin to dry up and shrivel away. For this reason, using strawberry plant runners for propagation makes it especially easy to make more plants. Therefore, with good management one should never have to purchase strawberry plants. See the little runners stapled with a short piece of wire in the pots below.
Strawberries have tiny edible seeds, which grow all over their surface. When ripe, strawberries smell wonderful and taste even better.
This week we picked our biggest haul to date. I have been driving the family nuts with my scales. For fun I have been weighing the amount of fruit we harvest. It is interesting to see the what fruit that comes from the plants.
This week we had our largest pick yet, weighed in over three kilos of delicious fruit! Luckily, we have had little damage from pests, though that said admittedly some of this pick had some snail damage, not many. These were cleaned, the damaged parts removed and discarded, and the remainder used for making some strawberry jam. The prettiest ones were used as a topping for a ‘Tarte aux fraises’ a beautiful strawberry topped 'tarte' with a crème pâtissière filling which my wife made. We ate it so fast I forgot to take a picture.
We have had some large individual strawberries. All our strawberries have been delightful to eat. My weighing of the fruit has been for fun to date we have harvested over seven kilos of fruit. Consuming our own home-grown fruit fresh from our own garden is a wonderful experience and worth all the work that goes into the production. It is with pride we share some produce with our neighbours and friends, its nice to give something back.
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