Suburban Container Garden

The double decker green bean patch at the end is flanked by the bush cucumbers and the potato ranch is beginning to take shape again. We got the containers hooked up to the drip sprinkler system. Originally we put the sprinkler pipes in for flowers, but guess what? No flowers, just veggies. Pretty soon we'll plant more and expand the garden. Gardening is good!!!

Today's Goodies From the Garden

What started as a quick peek in Our Suburban Garden soon became a pick-fest. We have been enjoying homemade strawberry lemonade this week. The zucchini, lettuce, spinach and kale are making great salad. The green peppers and onion are great in our home fried potatoes. Yum yum. Happy Gardening!!

Strawberry Patch Gets Ceramic Tile

Thanks to a suggestion from Ruth at http://diaryofamadgardener.blogspot.com/ we decided to tile our strawberry patch. So far it is so much neater to have the berries on the tiles rather than on the soil. We are so glad she made this suggestion. Thanks! Happy Gardening from Our Suburban Garden.

Strawberry Nirvana

Today we all trekked over to the California Strawberry Festival held in Ventura County. The drive is spectacular when you get north of Malibu. PCH is carved between mountain bluffs and ancient rock formations and the ocean. Suddenly the mountains end and there are miles of strawberry fields. After the festival we took a wrong turn (I usually get lost) and stumbled upon a U-Pick farm. The kids' enthusiasm kicked in and we picked half a flat of super sweet strawberries. It's nice to visit this beautiful region, have some fun, and dream a little...

Strawberries on Steroids ?

The strawberries plants and leaves are huge!!! Not sure what has them so excited except the warm weather. The fruit is just starting to form and it looks very promising. Last year we had some weeks when we could harvest one collander of berries each day. Oh Yea!!! (That's the bottom of our dwarf Washington navel orange tree in the back of the photo)

Any advice for dealing with strawberries that touch the ground and rot or get eaten by insects? Would straw stop it? Please leave a comment if you know. Thanks!!

Strawberry Blossoms in February

After the winter rains the strawberries blossomed and are looking great. We also bought a 10 pack root stock of Sequoia strawberry plants. If you look closely you can see one of them in the top right corner of this photo. We're filling in some of the empty spaces in the strawberry patch with the new plants. Lil Bro helped plant the new root stock. Can't wait until harvest time.