Strawberries!

With spring comes strawberries. Sweet, delicious, tender, melt in your mouth little gems. I just got a new ice cream maker and I thought how wonderful it would be to have fresh strawberry ice cream, or berries for breakfast, or lunch, or dessert, or just as a snack…

Because I am growing my veggie garden in pots this year I thought that I would try strawberries in pots as well. After spending the better part of a day driving around town looking for the perfect strawberry pot (3 hours later looking for any strawberry pot) I was leafing through my new favorite book and discovered something brilliant, hanging baskets of strawberries!

Here is what you will need if you are going to do this:
1. A hanging basket, it is a good idea to line this with a porous material, like coconut fiber- I used two 12 inch baskets.
2. Good dirt mixed with some sand and bonemeal- I used old coffee grinds and tea.
3. Water polymer crystals- these amazing little crystals keep the dirt from drying out too fast.
4. Four or five strawberry starters per basket.
5. Some straw for mulching.

Fill pot 3/4 of the way with dirt. Mix in polymer crystals. Carefully place in plants, fan out roots. Add dirt until the roots are covered but dirt is not over new leaf shoots. Leave about one inch of basket edge at the top. Carefully add straw around plants. Water the little plants well. Strawberries like sun and a little shade, but check them to make sure they don’t dry out. Once in a while, every 10-14 days, give them a little tomato food to keep them extra delighted.
I planted two little extra pots with one plant each to give away as gifts.
Happy planting!