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Harvest Report

Published by

Rebecca

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We had a modest harvest from the Family of 4 Garden today, and a whole lot of strawberries.

DON’T try this at home! This is 5.25 pounds of strawberries. If you stack them up like this for too long, you will end up with strawberry mush. I always seem to underestimate our little strawberry patch. For some reason, the first berries are small and not very nice. Then we get this huge onslaught of fruit. I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. I wish the berry size was better on this variety, ‘Eversweet’. It’s a nice enough variety, but there are much better varieties out there.

We harvested another head of the ‘Caraflex’ cabbage, as well as half a pound of lettuce from the Family of 4 Garden.

The lettuce is almost done, but there’s still a little bit. We harvested about 1/2 lb. of lettuce this week. We could also start harvesting the Swiss Chard soon, but we didn’t this week.

Family of 4 Harvest:

1/2 lb. lettuce @ $7.00/lb = $3.50

Weekly Total = $3.50

Year to Date = $85.02

13 responses to “Harvest Report”

  1. Dee Avatar
    Dee

    yum, yum, yum!! Can’t hardly wait till my patch is mature enough for harvest!!

    Reply
  2. Jennifer Avatar
    Jennifer

    What strawberry varieties would you recommend? Most of the ones I see around Lawrence are the short-day kinds.

    Reply
    1. Rebecca Avatar
      Rebecca

      Well, generally I think the short-day (June-bearing) strawberries are better quality berries, even though you only get them in June. This ‘Eversweet’ variety is okay, but not spectacular. The flavor is not what it could be, and the berry size is small. For everbearing/day neutral strawberries, I’ve had some ‘Albion’ that I really liked, but I haven’t tried growing them here, yet. ‘Seascape’ is a good producer, and decent flavor if you let it ripen fully.

      Reply
  3. Esther Kim Avatar
    Esther Kim

    ooh i love strawberries!!
    do you recommend i grow them in my backyard? would the climate and soil in long island, ny be ideal for strawberry planting..?
    what types would you recommend we plant?

    Reply
    1. Rebecca Avatar
      Rebecca

      You can certainly grow strawberries in your back yard. Long Island, NY would be a great climate for strawberries. I would encourage you to check out this publication from Cornell University about growing strawberries in New York: http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/fruit/pdfs/strhomegarden.pdf

      Reply
  4. Esther Kim Avatar
    Esther Kim

    Thanks for the pdf file!
    Mm.. in order to harvest a decent amount of strawberries per season (aka enough to feed a family of four once or twice), how many should we plant?

    Reply
    1. Rebecca Avatar
      Rebecca

      A good rule of thumb is that for every 1 ft of strawberries, you should expect about 1 quart of berries. My experience in a home garden is that might be a little optimistic. Maybe 1/2 quart per ft of row? So if you plant a 10 ft. row, you might expect about 5-10 quarts of berries over a harvest season.

      Reply
      1. Esther Kim Avatar
        Esther Kim

        Mmkay..
        When’s the best season to plant them?

      2. Rebecca Avatar
        Rebecca

        It’s best to plant strawberries in the early spring. I’m not super familiar with your climate there, but I would imagine that mid-April or so would be a good time. About the same time you would plant cabbage or potatoes normally.

  5. Esther Kim Avatar
    Esther Kim

    Haha I’ve never planted cabbage or potatoes before :\
    But I’ll definitely look more into planting strawberries.. hopefully asap!

    Reply
  6. Aung Myint Avatar
    Aung Myint

    Hi, I would like to know if it is ok to plant strawberries in my area in mountain with 3600 feet elevation, 27’c highest and 20’c lowest in temperature with mist sometimes mostly in evening. We don’t have frost. Thanks and waiting for your reply.

    Reply
  7. Rebecca Avatar
    Rebecca

    You should be able to grow strawberries successfully. I’m not sure how the conditions will impact the fruiting and productivity though.

    Reply
    1. Aung Myint Avatar
      Aung Myint

      Thanks for your reply. I was worried about the mist and afternoon shower.

      Reply

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