Strawberry Success

This is year's thinned out 'patchy  patch' with raised strawberry mounds and no weed mat or straw. I thought I'd try to give the slugs and snails fewer places to hide and it seems to be working.

Even with less plants (too lazy to replant the runners) I'm still pulling out a punnet's worth every 3 or 4 days. It's so good not to worry about how much they cost and eat big handfuls at a time, especially as I know they have not been sprayed with anything. Strawberries are one of those commercial crops that get a lot of pesticide treatment: http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/eat-safe/strawberries-pesticide-residue#slide-11. This variety is seriously sweet - Cambridge Rival.

Strawberry Delight

The strawberry patch went well this year, though the slugs ate quite a few. I used some garden-friendly snail-bait in a tube to tempt them away. But there were so many, I didn't worry too much about it.



I'm not sure if this is a biennial variety. They didn't do too much last season. It's a variety called "Cambridge Rival" and they are so sweet, they are almost like sherbert sweets - possibly even too sweet for me! I might get another variety that fruits at a different time to extend the strawberry season. I replanted some of the newer runners into a different section of the patch and used black plastic as a weed mat for the next season.