in a bowl of chopped up strawberries and you get stronger tasting strawberries.

a good quality balsamic vinegar it's even better. I love that stuff!

so is water (H₂O), chemical name: dihydrogen monoxide.

We grow a good percentage of our food,
pick it when ripe, and soak in a mild vinegar solution as it enters the kitchen from the garden.
However, this will NOT make a decent Strawberry "last for weeks".

If a good, heirloom Strawberry is picked when ripe, it has a shelf life of about an hour unless you soak it in fiberglass.
I guess that is what they use for those Faux Strawberries in the Supermarket.
They LOOK like Strawberries, and even SMELL like Strawberries,
but they taste like cardboard.

We had a Bumper Crop of Strawberries here in Central Arkansas this year.
We easily doubled or tripled our harvest from any previous year.
We were able to put away several gallons of Frozen Strawberries and Preserves.
The harvest is about over, but we're still able to eat breakfast standing up in the Strawberry patch every morning.

If you want good Strawberries, you really have to grow them yourself,
but they are very labor intensive. They require more time, effort, and Sore Backs than anything else we grow, by far.....but they ARE worth it.

store strawberries is they're so freaking *big*. strawberries aren't supposed to be that big.

also, eggs. they now taste like poop, as does some fish. don't get me started.

...that we sold everything,
moved here and started growing our own.

Strawberries and Tomatoes were first on the list.
Eggs were a close 2nd, and we now keep our own chickens.

Fortune really smiled on us when we decided to Take the Leap,
and we are grateful for every day that we are able to do this.

I'm totally jealous!
Strawberries are my favorite fruit by far. I don't think I have enough land to grow enough to keep us supplied (small duplex lot in the city - I just bought and it's new so have to wait till landscaping is done before the garden thing starts) so I'll be concentrating on other crops. My ex-IL's used to have a giant strawberry patch and when I went to visit them, I asked to go pick some for breakfast. They looked at me weirdly and said, "Oh, we never pick them to eat fresh - we just make jam with them!" OMG, that many fresh strawberries and to never eat them fresh!?! Sacrilege!

The only thing better tasting in the whole world is wild strawberries...but I know from experience you'll never find enough of those tiny things to make a breakfast out of them.

If you don't mind me asking - how big is your patch? If there's any way I can make it work, I will try! lol.

We started in 2007 with an 8' x 4' raised box and 25 everbearing Arkansas Beauties crowns.
We added another 4' x 8' raised box of June Bearing Sequoias the next year.

Over the years, we have evolved to Terraces since we garden on a hillside.
If you are interested, there are some photos and text here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=246x11812

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=246x12169

I don't know how much square footage we have,
but this is how the Strawberry patch looked last year.




In addition to these, we still have one of the original 4' x 8' raised beds.

We didn't expect such a good crop this year.
Our Spring was very capricious, with several false Springs where some of the Berries bloomed,
followed by a couple of unexpected sharp freezes, followed by another round of half-hearted blooming.

Additionally, we were unable to due the regular thinning, pruning, replanting of crowns, and fertilizing this Spring.
We did almost nothing as far as care and maintenance. The Strawberry Patch was overcrowded, and really in the same condition that it was last Fall. So we went into this season writing off the prospects for a good Strawberry harvest, so we were very surprised.

Last year, we experimented with a row of cinder blocks with the holes up,
filled with soil, and Strawberries planted on top.
This worked well, with the fruit hanging over the side, easy to pick, and avoiding contact with the ground.
If you have limited space, we would recommend the cinder blocks as a border to a raised bed with tomatoes or whatever planted in the bed,
and Strawberries planted in the cinder blocks around the circumference.

Good Luck.
Strawberries are a bunch of work,
but they are worth it.

Goddamn.