Cage Fightin' Strawberry

I bought strawberries at the grocery store. They were, well, strawberries. I picked my second pair of strawberries from the garden this week. They were phenomenal.

I scooped up the plant at our plant swap two years ago from a neighbor that was giving up on growing strawberries. "Too may critters and not enough rewards," was his answer. During the first year, the handful of berries produced went straight to bellies of squirrels, birds, and slugs, most while still an unripe white. The berries cropped up, off and on, throughout the year, although never as abundantly as in spring.

This year, the gloves gave off. I fashioned a small cage to keep the varmints out, and to date it is working. The top of a tomato cage is wrapped in bird netting, producing a netted top hat that is easily lifted to get inside. Squirrels can still reach into the berries if needed, but I believe they have not discovered the plant this year. If they show up in the ring, I will just build a bigger cage.

The berries were not large. For the taste test, I chomped into a mega-sized store-bought berry from California just before the home grown ones. The store-bought were fine. My home-grown berries taste 'noisy' -- screaming wild and strong. If only the berries were more plentiful and larger I would be singing, too. Even a small number of strawberries taste good with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

For The Record:   • Decent well-drained soil on a slope   • Full sun, leaf mulch   • Light amount of nitrogen fertilizer   • Yellowing of lower leaves, squirrels and birds eat fruit Garden Calendar:   • Blooming: salvia, echinacea, coreopsis   • Harvested: strawberries, spinach