Henny Penny Farmette

I used dry straw to mulch my strawberries today.  In early October, I gave them a feeding and also added a layer of healthy organic compost that was dry. Strawberries are one of the easiest berries to grow. Give them the right nutrients, lots of sun, plenty of water (especially during growing season), and you’ll be rewarded with plenty of sweet, succulent berries. Rinse and eat them right after picking or dip them in melted chocolate, add a handful to a healthy shake, or drop them into homemade ice cream or a bowl of tart yogurt drizzled with honey–the possibilities are almost endless for enjoying these sweet eatables from the garden.

The soil for strawberries should be fairly rich. A good rule of thumb is to create soil that is 50 percent solid and 50 percent porous space. The latter provides room for plant roots, water, and air. I like to grow my berries in 4 x 6 foot raised beds rather than growing them in a traditional garden bed. The raised beds seem to minimize the problems with snails and slugs. Strawberries need sun and water. If salinity is a problem, plant them in a flat bed bed. They don’t do so well in the desert or places where water salinity poses a problem.

Strawberries are easy to start if you buy a dozen starter plants from your local nursery. Almost any planting container will do . . . an half wine barrel, a wooden crate filled lined with a plastic bag and filled with planting mix,  or even an old bucket with some nail holes to permit drainage. Don’t bury the crown; it will rot. Topmost roots should be about a quarter inch below the soil surface.

Many varieties of strawberries  reproduce with new plants at the end of runners. You can pinch off the runners or allow them to grow up to 7 to 10 inches apart. If you pinch the runners, you’ll get bigger berries but smaller yields; if you let them grow, you’ll get smaller berries but heavy yields. Check with your local nursery for more information about which strawberry varieties grow best in your area.

It’s the first day of November and I’ve counted four leftover pumpkins that we didn’t use for Halloween. So I’m considering options of what to do with them.

Option 1. Remove the seeds and save them in a paper envelope for planting next year. I’ll need seeds from both male and female plants to get pumpkins; otherwise, the garden will be filled with only vines.

Option 2. Turn the flesh into pumpkin pie filling. If the pumpkins were those smaller, sweeter French pumpkins that I love for pie making, I’d be feeling more excited. However, these were grown just for the purpose of carving jack-o-lanterns and so I’m not so sure about how sweet the flesh of these will taste. But I might give it a try.

Option 3.  Cut and remove the pumpkin seeds, clean and toast them with a little seasoning, and voila, I’ve got a healthy snack.

Option 4. Make pumpkin soup from mashed cook pumpkin. I would mix it with several cups or so of vegetable stock, a small onion, a carrot, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon,  1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg, and salt and white pepper (to taste). Add one-half cup of a buttery-tasting chardonnay or white wine and simmer together. For garnish, Id finely chop top shoots of a green onion and/or serve with thin-slices of bread toasted in butter in a skillet or toss flavorful croutons into soup-filled bowls.

Things I’ve learned about pumpkins: They grow best during the warm season and, in fact, the seeds won’t even germinate in cold ground. I’ve grown the semi-bush variety and also the vining pumpkins that love to sprawl. They can spread out 50 to 100 square feet or so per hill. I love to see honeybees venturing inside the open blossoms (these little critters can carry pollen for more than a mile and often travel distances of up to five miles in search of food). Because I welcome these pollinators in my organic garden, I don’t use insecticides. A word of caution for plucking pumpkin stems from the vine: wear gloves as the prickles can be quite sharp.