Spring is a Berry Nice Time of Year

There is an old saying around here that says, "It's not officially spring until the pecan trees bud out."  Well, here we go!:

Speaking of pecans, I've finally gotten around to shelling the 2 five gallon buckets of pecans we collected underneath our trees.  Tricia took them to our feed store here in town and they crack them.  I like to sit and mindlessly shell the pecans.  They freeze nicely, so we have gallons of pecans frozen, waiting to be turned into pies and such.

I wanted to show you the strawberries.  We've planted strawberries in the past.  I'd like to say we had success growing them, but no, I'd be telling you a tall tale.  In years past slugs would eat them before we could get to them.  I decided to try again this year.  I ordered 22 bare root strawberry plants.  They looked very strange, almost dead, when they arrived.  I planted them, ensuring that the crowns were above ground and they began growing immediately.  We had fresh, green growth the very next day.  

Soon, we began to see blooms and little berries.

It was a beautiful sight to behold.  Right there in amongst the sweet potatoes were red, ripe strawberries.

Each morning, we gather a handful of fresh strawberries and wash them, chill them, and snack on them.  I've got to say they are very sweet.  Even Russ, who is not real big on compliments, told us that they are some of the sweetest he's ever eaten.  The variety is called Ozark Beauty.

So far, the slugs have NOT been eating them.  I was prepared for that.  Someone told me that the remedy for slugs in the garden is beer.  I was told that if you pour a saucer of beer and set it down in the strawberry patch, slugs are attracted to it, fall in the beer and drown.  But no slugs have bellied up to the bar yet.

One thing we have had is Birds eating on the berries.  A few have holes where the birds peck at them.  If this continues, we have a net that we can string out over the strawberries to protect them.  I was also told to make some "strawberry rocks" and scatter around in the berry patch.  Strawberry rocks are ordinary round stones that you paint red and place around the base of the plants.  As the story goes, birds arrive to eat berries and instead are fooled and peck into a hard, red rock.  They soon get discouraged and give up.  Interesting strategy.  We'll see how that works out.  Strawberries have a difficult time with slugs and birds and other pests.  That's why strawberries are the crop that you always read about that have more pesticides on them than anything else on the produce aisle.