Fall Strawberries

After months of doing virtually nothing, my 'Seascape' day-neutral strawberries are finally starting to take off. I had planted my crowns earlier this year and wasn't able to harvest a single strawberry all summer long because of the garden rodents. A better gardener would have applied some protection early on, but admittedly, I was rather ambivalent until now.


Now that the plants are starting to flower and fruit in abundance, I'm finally realizing that it would be foolish to let the critters continue to have their way.

Seascape isn't the only variety I'm growing currently. I have another ever-bearer called 'Sarian' that I started from seed. The plants are relatively compact and disease resistant and the small berries are somewhat elongated. Unfortunately, Sarian is nowhere near as tasty as Seascape.


It took me about 15 minutes to cover my strawberry bed with some bird netting. (Why did I wait so long to do this?) I'm sure the field mice would be able get though if they really wanted to, but I'm hoping that the netting will at least encourage them to move on to an easier target. We'll see I guess.


Now is also the time to root some runners. Surprisingly, my two dozen or so plants have collectively produced only five runners. Hopefully, they will be a little more vigorous next year now that the crowns and roots are well established.


For the longest time, I felt as though it was futile to try and keep the rodents away from my berries. Then the other day, I picked this perfectly ripe strawberry and yes, it tasted as good as (if not better than) it looked. Now I'm more determined than ever to protect my plants from any would-be attacker.