We picked strawberries today at Schact Farm Market. Given the interest on facebook and twitter, I wrote a quick profile for those looking to pick strawberries this season. Schacht is a family farm located in south east central Ohio. The easy drive to their location took thirty minutes from our home in Clintonville. The farm is well organized as a pick your own operation. Guests are invited to bring their own baskets (yay for reusing!). [...]

There is nothing like homegrown fruit. Last year we enjoyed warm raspberries off the vine and perfectly sweet strawberries along with two (yes, just two) Italian plums. The anticipation for this year’s fruit starts with tiny flower buds and bitty baby fruit that are revealing themselves now. Here are some of the fruitlets we are tending this year: concord grapes, montmorency cherries strawberries, and red raspberries. Not pictured are the fuzzy green peaches, snow drop [...]

Did you pick strawberries last week and then receive quarts of them in your CSA this week?  That’s the case with many of my friends who are now looking for quick ways to process the excess. The fastest way to preserve berries, in my opinion, is freezing.  Frozen berries can be popped into yougurt parfaits, smoothies, baked goods, or jam later in the season.  They last for at least a year in the coldest part [...]

When we returned from a short vacation last week, there were plenty of ripe strawberries to pick.  Lil asked sweetly, “Can we make strawberry shortcake please Mama?” She is hard to refuse.  But after four days of restaurants and treats, I wanted to make dessert a little healthier.  I adapted a recipe my mother uses for shortcake by lessening the sugar, using white whole wheat flour, and substituting skimmed milk.  The recipe might originally be [...]

Just after the second set of pea leaves appeared, birds started eating them.  I blame sparrows, the possibly invasive species that seem to swarm our neighborhood in the spring. So, bird netting is on the peas. Last year we lost strawberries to the squirrels.  Even with Alex’s not exactly legit squirrel hunting, they still come around. Bird netting is on the strawberries. Then I noticed that despite plenty of rain and sun the lettuce just [...]

Our berries are growing gangbusters this year! This is their second and third year in this bed, one in between our house and the neighbors.  It gets sunlight for about 6 hours of the day now and that time is ever lengthening. Weeds are a threat to these berries.  I weed the bed almost daily removing the starchy sticky stems of milkweed that seem to grow inches overnight. As the green fruits are already the [...]

Strawberries are named such because gardeners traditionally cover them in straw during the fall.  The straw mulch both prevents weeds from growing in early spring and protect the delicate plants from cleaving through frozen soil. Now is the time to put straw on your beds in central Ohio.  I happened to score some free straw from Giant Eagle the other day (it had been used for a pumpkin display) so I knew it was time [...]