Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The Start of Strawberry Season.

Strawberry season has officially started in Ontario. There are tons of fresh Ontario strawberries available, and the local farms are opening their gates to strawberry pickers (please tell me why it is so much easier to find someone to go apple picking with me than strawberry picking!). Our tiny backyard patch has bits of red peaking out, and our hanging baskets are sure producing! These give us enough to snack on, but I would still like to visit a local farm to pick berries for the bigger jobs, like jam making and freezing. Frozen strawberries are one of my very favourite treats.

The rest of our garden is growing and changing, and filling me with excitement for the good things to come.

The tomatoes I planted in the ground are just beginning to grow tiny green bulbs, but this plant (which I had originally thought was a cherry tomato plant) has several plump green tomatoes.

The gooseberries are ready to turn purple.

The currants are already changing to red.

And the raspberries are beginning to flower and grow. We were worried we wouldn't have nearly as many as previous years because Lola runs through the raspberry bushes and she has knocked over some stems during the winter, but they have filled out nicely.

We've also had our usual visit from the Doves who like to nest in our grape vine, a sure sign that summer is here. It isn't a good place for them as squirrels frequent it as well, but they still come back every year.

I'm almost embarassed to post this last photo as my vegetable garden that I envisioned with straight and even rows of beans, peas, cucumber, and zucchini, ended up looking like this instead..

The beans are also very crowded and I'm worried I will have to thin them out a little. I guess it really shouldn't matter what it looks like as long as I am happy with it. I am very glad it is growing well!

Enjoy the delicious strawberry season!

5 comments:

Vonlipi said...

Don't thin out those beans! They will hold each other. That's what I do and they yield tons of pods. But mind you I'm no expert!

Anonymous said...

i must say, i am jealous! I can't wait until we move into a house so we can have all those fun gardens in our back yard.... *sigh*
i will come strawberry picking! i've always wanted to go!

Nikki said...

Vonlipi - thanks for the advice! I'm new to gardening so I can use lots of advice!

Nikki - You'd have so much fun gardening, I can't wait until you move into a house either! Maybe one closer to Janet and I too. We'll see what we can do about strawberry picking!

EvieDessa said...

I would totally go strawberry picking! I went once when i was younger. lots of fun and deeelicious!

Anonymous said...

I'm hoping that we'd move in that area, but it's looking like Milton at the moment. :-\
Though we can still have gatherings! :) I'll need assistance in starting a garden! ;)
There's got to be many types of berry picking to do this summer! :)