A trip to a strawberry farm near you this week. Strawberry season is slowly winding down in Surry and Stokes counties and only a few more days left to pick your own harvest of fresh strawberries to freeze and enjoy in pies, shortcakes, jams, jellies, and preserving. The warm days of May with comfortable temperatures and no humidity makes picking easy. If you don’t have time to pick, call ahead and order some ready-picked berries which are reasonably priced. Next week may be the last opportunity this season to partake in this year’s Piedmont strawberry harvest. Wherever you live in the area, there is a pick-your-own field near you.
Retaining quality when you freeze strawberries. To make fresh strawberries that you freeze taste like fresh berries from the field all you need to do is use a little tender loving care. When handling the fresh-picked berries, process them as soon as you bring them home from the field. While at the field, buy a strawberry capper. Most strawberry farmers sell them for a little more than a dollar. Strawberries have caps and not hulls. The cappers make handy tools for removing the caps from the berries without much handling. The first step in freezing berries is to remove the caps from the berries. Do this before you wash the berries. The less you handle the berries, the better quality they will be when frozen. After capping berries, run cold water into the sink, run cold water in other side of sink. Place a quart of capped berries in first sink for half minute. Remove and place berries in second sink for half minute. Quickly remove the quart of berries and place on a dry towel and drain for one minute. Place the quart of berries in a plastic one quart freezer container. Do not pack or mash berries into containers. Repeat process over and over, one quart at a time. Later when berries are thawed, they will have the taste and firmness of fresh strawberries.
Making a Shoney’s strawberry pie. This is a melt-in-you-mouth tart strawberry pie. You can use a frozen pie crust or a graham cracker crust which is better. You will need one cup of sugar, one cup cold water, six tablespoons corn starch, one three-ounce box strawberry of Jello, one quart fresh strawberries cut into quarters, one unbaked pie shell or graham cracker pie crust. Cut the fresh strawberries into quarters and spread into pie shell or crust. Heat the cup of water and stir in the sugar and corn starch until thick, remove from heat and add strawberry Jello, and stir until well-blended. Pour over strawberries and chill an hour in refrigerator. Top with Cool Whip or whipped cream.
Making a good potting medium for annuals in containers and hanging baskets. My mother always said that “You get just what you pay for.” This is so very true when purchasing potting medium for annuals, ferns, flowers and plants. These annuals are in for a long, hot summer on the porch or deck, so why waste time and money on bags of lumps, clumps, sawdust, and bark in bag name potting soil that does not have too much soil in it? Why waste your money in beautiful flowers and plant them in lumpy, cheap, potting soil? Purchase potting medium especially formulated for flowers, plants, and annuals that has good texture and nutrients that flowers thrive on. Good potting medium comes in 20- to 40-pound bags and you will not feel any bark or lumps in the bags. Use the “feel” test when you buy a bag quality potting medium. A good bit of wisdom is don’t buy a bag that has a hole in it, inspect it carefully.
Keep a bag of peat moss on hand for planting flowers and vegetables. Peat moss is a great enhancer and an improver of all types of soil and it also helps retain water as well as absorb moisture into the soil thus promoting growth and health of both flowers and vegetables. A 3.5 cubic foot bale of peat moss costs around $10 to $11 dollars. To use, all you have to do is slice open the top of the bale and shovel out what you need and use a few clothespins to seal the bale until you need some more. It is a good rule to never run out of peat moss all during the growing season.
The benefits a Black Kow bag brings to the garden plot. This organic product in a yellow and black plastic bag pays rich dividends to any garden plot or raised bed. It can be purchased in hardware’s, Lowe’s, and Home Depot and all garden centers. You can purchase it in 25- and 50-pound bags. It is totally organic and ready to use. A 25-pound bag costs between $5 and $6 dollars. It is good for the soil, good for vegetables and flowers and best of all-good for the environment.
The time is ideal for the setting out tomato plants. The nights of May are definitely getting warmer and this is a sure sign that it is time to start the bulk of the tomato crop for a bountiful mid-summer harvest. The warm May days and nights will get them off and running. In all, there are at 350 varieties of tomatoes in all sizes, shapes, and colors. Some colors are red, pink, orange, yellow, purple, green (for frying), and believe it or not, there are white tomatoes. Of all the tomato varieties the best are Big Boy, Rutgers, Marylobe, Homestead, Better Boy, Park’s Whopper, Celebrity, Early Girl, Beffy Boy, Beffy Steak, Roma and German Johnson. Plant quite a few varities for a long and consistent harvest. Also plant a few plants each week for as long as you can find healthy plants to continue to prolong the summer harvest. Remember that all summer tomatoes no matter what variety need to be caged or staked for support as well as protection from wind and thunderstorms and keep the harvest off the ground. Allow at least two feet between each tomato plant to allow for stakes, cages, and room to harvest.
Impatiens make the prettiest of all hanging baskets. The impatiens is so useful as an annual and can be planted in borders, beds, and rows. It can also be planted in pots, containers, but their main attribute is what they do to adorn hanging baskets as they cascade over the sides of the baskets. Plant only two or three plants per basket to avoid them getting rootbound. Water baskets every day until water runs out hold in bottom of the baskets. Feed with Flower-Tone organic flower food every ten days. The impatiens comes in colors of red, white, pink, rose, wine, orange, salmon. They come in four and six packs and best of all, they come in full bloom.
Planting a row or bed of color in the form of zinnias. To attract butterflies, hummingbirds, bees, all kinds of pollinators as well as Emrches and other birds, plant a row or bed of zinnias. The colorful zinnias are a favorite of tiger swallowtail and the Monarch butterflies. Plant zinnias all during the month of May and feed them every two weeks with Flower-Tone organic flower food.
Hoe-Hoe-Hoedown: Circus fun! Why did the sword swallower swallow an umbrella? Because he wanted to put something away for a rainy day.
Earl: “Why did they arrest the knife swallower?” Pearl: “He burped and stabbed someone in the bleachers.”
“Flight to Egypt:” The Sunday school teacher asked her students to draw a picture of Mary and Joseph and the Christ Child fleeing from King Herod. Madge drew an airplane with three faces looking out the windows. “That’s interesting,” said the teacher, “Where are they going?” “To Egypt,” said Madge. “By plane?” “Yes” said Madge, “Pontius, the pilot is flying them.”
Heidi: “I just figured how to come away from Las Vegas with a small fortune.” Dewey: “And how can you do that?” Heidi: “Go there with a large fortune.”
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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