My friend, Heidi, is rearranging her garden beds and offered her strawberry roots up to anyone who wanted to come dig them up. I just happened to have strawberry roots on my list of things to purchase, this year! Get them for free? Fantastic!
We went over after school and the big girls played, Corbin ran next door searching for boys at the Loden's, Soren sat by us and hunted for unharvested ripe strawberries to eat, and Sloane cried the whole time because I wasn't holding her. Heidi has doled out 100 roots already and still had over two hundred to clear out! It took 2 hours but we dug all of them up and chatted and tried to keep Sloane semi happy. I enjoyed learning how to trim off the old runners and excess leaves and fruit for more successful transplanting. When I got home, I put the roots in water, then added a bag of sand and a bag of vermiculite to the new bed, wished I had top soil, but called it good enough. Aaron had church meetings, so I couldn't do anything else until after everyone went to bed. Once kids were settled, I spent almost 3 hours planting strawberry roots by the glow of a flashlight. Here is the result in the morning. Not bad for working in the dark.
Aaron is not super happy that I'm "taking away all of the lawn." If it were up to me, The whole backyard would be raised beds and zero lawn! I dream of fruit trees and learning how to grow cut flowers, and rows of ranunculus and dahlias. Who needs a lawn?! ;) I told him he will sing a different song when he's (hopefully) not paying $5/week for strawberries next spring.
I actually hadn't planned to put strawberries here, because the blueberries will need more acidic soil, but when they're free and you don't have any space prepared for them, you just plant them anywhere and everywhere and hope for the best! I will just add pine needles to the mulch around the base of the blueberries.
On Thursday morning, we had a million doctor and school appointments, and when we got home, I was anxious to get the roots out of the bins and into the ground. I brought Sloane outside in a stroller and hauled several loads of compost around to the southeast side of the house and filled 50 square feet of unused beds. Soren and I planted the rest of the roots there when Sloane napped.
There are 2 more beds down below, not visible in the photo. One is also full of strawberries, and I'm going to try asparagus in the other, since we will be almost done harvesting by late spring when the trees cover it in shade. I tried transplanting raspberries there in the fall and they never took root. I should have been more diligent about watering, though. I will faithfully tend to these strawberries!
Sometimes, when I think about the hours I've spent working our garden, and how sleep deprived I am, or how grossly bathrooms are, it doesn't feel worth it. I know that's a whiny thing to post,but my hope is that they will be successful and bear loads of fruit. Years (and hopefully even months and weeks) from now, I will harvest something delicious, then remember the days spent building boxes, moving dirt and rocks until my arms couldn't move and back ached, and be grateful I stuck it out.
And if it's not successful? At least I enjoyed the vitamin D therapy, exercise, and the kids got to play in the dirt!
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