There’s a fiend in my house. No matter the hour, the meal, or the availability – she wants them.
And sow I put in twenty of them. And while this will not suffice to her appetites, it may help with a budding understanding of seasons, consumption, and responsibility.
Until then, and after, the clamshells that transport her fix will be cherished as squirrel and bird deterrents to her papa’s fix, potted up one final time before the giant leap for garden kind.
plumdirt 
We are so fortunate to have a pick-your-own (PYO) farm within 15 minutes of us. We pick regularly and often, and the season is just beginning. Yum, yum. I will follow to see how your yields are. I have never had luck with strawberries (which aren’t really berries, ya know) in my own garden; here’s a great pamphlet on growing them that you may find interesting. My best to you and the fam!
Click to access EHT-047-web.pdf
PS – on your Sonic tomatoes, how do you get such a long tap root in the cup? Do you water from the bottom up, allowing the roots to ‘chase’ the water? A special fertilizer? Additive? Do share!
We are out of the super strict nap protection this spring, so we’ll be taking a trip to a farm about an hour away to pick and pick and pick as well!
I water from the bottom in the seed trays and again in the 4″ pots. Then I put the bottom of that pot in the bottom of the giant cup and bury it up to the leaves. So the tap root doesn’t get longer so much as the stems turn into roots.
When they go from seed tray (with just seed starter) to 4″ pots they get some potting mix in the bottom of the pots. When they go into the giant cups, they get buried with a mix of compost and manure and the soil from the bed they’ll live in soon. Then I water with diluted fish emulsion to settle them in to their new cups.
Brilliance!! Have you ever pulled the vines and measured your tap root? That sounds like a recipe for total success. You grow slicers, right? (I gave up on slicers because of the work they require in keeping them producing. I’m so lazy.)
I had one whopping 15′ long cherry vine with 2.5′ tap root; it’s the one that set up next to the center compost basket of the keyhole a couple years back, a VOLUNTEER. Aka, zero work on my part except to toss sugar-sunshine-cherries into my face several times per day. Cherries, grapes and Romas are all I grow anymore.
I grow some slicers. Oxheart are the most successful of my bigger ones. Black Prince do well in the years that Oxheart struggle. Cherries and grapes are popular here and rarely make it inside.
Cherry Chadwick grew my longest ever, in 2012. The vine was 15 feet and the tour was 4 feet. 2012 was my best tomato and pepper year to date. I have a good feeling about this year. It’s the year my garden here is the age my previous garden was in 2012.
YUM!
I thought so! Now we’re into carrots and still going strong on greens.
raising those little ones on the good food of the earth!