We're so excited to finally have strawberry plants producing well on the farm and plan on sharing them with you often! If it seems late for 'strawberry season', it is, but not so much in the high dessert. Due to late frosts followed by sudden heat spells, outdoor strawberries take a while to get going around here. On our farm we plant day neutral strawberries, which produce continuously for a longer time rather than June bearers which come on all at once and are usually grown for u-pick and food processing. We have some plants we put in last spring, and some we put in this spring, and all are producing fruit now! Our older plants are producing a little more, and faster than the new ones as they were already established, but the difference really isn't much. We keep our strawberry plants for 2-3 years, because after that their production decreases and harvest therefore becomes tedious and inefficient.
Fun fact: we doubled our strawberry plants from last season to this season to accommodate providing berries for a larger CSA program, and we'll likely increase our production again next year as fresh strawberries are so well loved. We also sell strawberries at market, so if you don't get berries in your box and would like some, you're welcome to visit us at either Bend Farmer's Market. Although we have twice as many this year, demand has also skyrocketed so members will get berries first, and any that are left will be available to swap into boxes, add as an extra, and in on demand boxes. We wish we could get berries to everyone who wants them, but berries are an investment that takes a lot of planning as they stay in place for multiple years and we order plants in the winter for early spring planting. For now we're doing all that we can.
We've also got lots of other great sustenance in boxes this week including our first fresh yellow onions (great for cooking with, use the greens too!) more super sweet beets, the return of broccoli crowns and more!
Eat your veggies (and fruit), we hope you enjoy!
Ashley and Caleb
