The Strawberries Finally Pay Off

Those of you who have been reading PATSP for a while will be familiar with the story, but just to make sure everybody is crystal clear about what this means:

We moved to the current house in 2009. I had a lot of ideas in the gardening department, and more enthusiasm than sense, so I'd bought all kinds of plants (where "all kinds" means "mostly annuals") in preparation for the move. One of the higher-priority items was a strawberry plant ('Fort Laramie'), because my family had had a substantial strawberry patch when I was a kid, and this was something I wanted to duplicate in the new place. (I had similar dreams regarding raspberries, lilacs, weeping willow, and rhubarb, none of which are anywhere close to happening, even after four years. And the willow is never going to happen, on account of not having the space for one. But I digress.)

Well. So when we moved in, all the plants I had purchased were either stuck somewhere immediately (mostly in containers), or thrown up against the side of the garage until we could figure out where to put them. The strawberries were in the latter group. Realizing (correctly) that we were likely to procrastinate for a while, they sent out runners and planted themselves by the garage, because strawberries are no-nonsense plants that will not put up with your shit.

Which was all great and everything, but they planted themselves too late in 2009 for anything to happen, fruit-wise. So then there was a fall, and a winter, and suddenly it was 2010.

They came back fine, next to the garage, and produced a few (very exciting!) flowers, which turned into a handful of little white fruits, which got bigger and bigger and redder and redder -- and then were completely consumed by birds / squirrels / rabbits.

And then there was a summer, a fall, and a winter, and suddenly it was 2011.

Which was the year that the husband decided that they needed to be moved away from the garage, because he had plans for the garage. Some of them got moved in the spring, and some of them got moved in the fall. The ones that were moved in the fall mainly died, and the ones that got moved in the spring lived, but were obviously set back a bit by getting moved. So no strawberries that year.

And there was a winter, and suddenly it was 2012.

2012 looked promising initially, but I think they were confused. The spring started super early, and they were still recovering from the move the previous year, some didn't survive the transplant, and then they got hit with a drought, so we didn't collect any strawberries in 2012 either.

And. There was a summer, and a fall, and a winter, and suddenly it was 2013.

With all that for context, then, you can imagine how excited I was about this:

This is only the first bowl; there have been another 1.7 bowls this size so far, and it seems likely that we're going to continue collecting fruit for another couple months. (I didn't find a lot of information about 'Fort Laramie's performance specifically, but this page claims that it "really does everbear," so we may be eating a lot of strawberries this summer. Not sure what to expect from it in our specific conditions, though.)

When I was a kid, Mom used to prepare them by cutting them up and then sprinkling a little sugar over them, so that's what we did with the first couple bowls. I wasn't quite prepared for the taste. Not that they don't taste like a strawberry; it's more that, compared to the ones from the supermarket, they're really intense. (Have you ever eaten something that was flavored with artificial strawberry flavoring, and thought to yourself, goodness gracious, no real strawberry has such an intense, cloying taste, what are the manufacturers thinking, trying to pass this off as "strawberry-flavored?" 'Fort Laramie' strawberries really taste like that.

I then ran into an article somewhere on-line, which I can no longer find, a few days later, which explained how this happened. Bigger berries, everything else being equal, are faster and easier to pick, which saves harvesting time and labor costs. And of course strawberries are sold by weight, not by sugar content or flavor or whatever, and the cheapest, fastest way to pack on weight is for most of their volume to be water. Therefore: tasteless, odorless strawberries the size of apricots. (Basically the same thing that's happened with other fruits -- supermarket oranges are why I no longer like oranges, for example, because they're so bland.)

These, though, are a lot softer and less fibrous, the individual berries are smaller, and you can -- I am not kidding -- smell them from twenty feet (~7 m) away. Why we're not having to fight more with the birds and squirrels, I have no idea.

So. I think I spent $7 for the original pot, and I'm guessing we've gotten at least seven pounds (~3.2 kg) out of them, albeit after waiting for four years. It's about damn time.

[Exceptionally] Pretty pictures: transmitted light -- Part XLVIII

Hey, you know what we haven't done in a really long time? Transmitted-light pictures! (There are reasons for this, but they're really boring and not worth explaining, so let's get directly to the pictures.)

(The previous transmitted light posts can be found here.)

Ipomoea purpurea? I really like the way this one turned out. Plain though it is, it might be my favorite from this set.

Fragaria x 'Fort Laramie,' autumn. Will next year be the year we get to eat some of the strawberries our plants produce? 2009 didn't work because we'd just moved and everything was crazy-crazy. In 2010 and 2011, there were a few strawberries, but various animals got to them before we did, and there weren't that many in the first place. In 2012, they didn't produce any, because we moved them to a new spot and they needed time to recover. So 2013 might be the year that buying the plant finally pays off. Or, you know. Not.

Verbascum thapsus, with mildew. Unsurprisingly, the mildew does not improve the photo.

Philodendron 'Imperial Red.' I no longer have this plant; it never did very well for me, even though 'Imperial Green' did. I suppose they're not necessarily related, despite the names. This parallels my experiences with Philodendron 'Moonlight' and 'Autumn:' the red one limped along, the green one thrived. Coincidence?

Pilea pumila. Not sure why I thought this would be interesting. Possibly just the novelty of seeing a Pilea that lives in Iowa.

Episcia NOID. A nice range of colors, at least. Gesneriads rarely make for good transmitted light subjects.

Solenostemon scutellarioides NOID. Not sure what happened to this picture. It definitely doesn't look right.

Musa 'Zebrina Rojo.' (possibly Ensete 'Zebrina Rojo;' I don't know what specific botanical characteristics distinguish Musa from Ensete) Banana leaves are always nice.

Synadenium grantii var. rubrum. Probably the best houseplant on the list, though it's not like there's a lot of competition. And the picture doesn't do justice to the plant.

Alocasia amazonica 'Polly.' The venation here is a little ridiculous, and whoever thought chocolate brown and fluorescent lime green go together should be pointedly questioned, if not actually punished. But it's okay.

[Exceptionally] Pretty pictures: transmitted light -- Part XXXIX

It's hard to follow the plant profiles. Even when it's not a great profile, I've put enough effort into it that I usually don't have time to come up with something else. So: transmitted light photos.

(The previous transmitted light posts can be found here.)

Peperomia orba. I don't know why this wound up being such a crappy picture; the leaves are thick, but I've gotten better pictures with thicker leaves before. Unlucky, perhaps.

Taraxacum officinale. This one, on the other hand, is unpleasant because it was taken at the end of fall and the leaf in question was old. There may have been mildew on it too.

Senecio macroglossus.

Fragaria x 'Fort Laramie,' autumn. I was reminded last fall how brilliant the colors can be on strawberry plants. One of those things I knew at one time but forgot about.

Callisia repens.

Colocasia esculenta. If you only concentrate on the darker areas around the main veins, this sort of looks like a few very carefully-arranged green feathers.

Caladium 'Cardinal.'

Weigela florida 'Alexandra.' If I'm reading correctly, the on-line consensus is that this is the same as 'Wine and Roses.' Looks pretty, whatever you call it. A little dark for the yard, maybe.

Stromanthe sanguinea 'Triostar.' These often turn out nicely, but I rarely think that the photo came out looking like the leaf actually looked in person. This one isn't quite right either (though it's still a nice picture).

Quercus sp., autumn. I have a lot of autumn Quercus photos stockpiled; this isn't the best one by a long shot, but it's still my favorite from this set.

[Exceptionally] Pretty pictures: transmitted light -- Part XVIII

I will admit that this particular batch is not my best. I've pretty well run out of new plants to get pictures of. The next batch, 19, is better than this, and there's always at least one pretty spectacular picture in each set, but there's sort of an overall let's call it a lull, from 18 to 23 or so.

What happened around Part 23 was, I realized that none of you guys are going back and looking at all the previous pictures anyway, so I can go back to plants I've gotten pictures of already and nobody will know, so Parts 24 and 25 ought to knock your socks off. Seriously. You will no longer be able to wear socks. But right now, we're at 18 and I know we've all seen better and I'm deeply sorry or something.

So let's hurry up and get this over with.

(The previous transmitted light posts, many of which are considerably better than this, can be found here.)

Hoya carnosa 'Chelsea.' The venation for thick leaves like this often wind up reminding me of clouds.

Syngonium podophyllum 'Neon.' There's an odd asymmetry to the symmetry here. I like it. It's different.

Homalomena cv. 'Perma Press.' Not terribly impressed with Homalomena cvv. as houseplants, but I will say for them that they have very graceful veins.

Fragaria cv. 'Fort Laramie.' I remember this as being a much better picture when I first took it. Either my memory is wrong, or something went badly awry during the cropping and editing process.

Streptocarpus 'Purple Martin.' I really am going to write that Streptocarpus profile someday, I promise. I've had some difficulty with it, in that I find it difficult to be interested.

Phlebodium aureum 'Blue Hare.' Maybe I should get one of these sometime. No idea how they'd do inside, and the growth habit is sort of wild and random, but the venation is so cool.

Ipomoea batatas 'Blackie.' Either this one or the Polypodium is my favorite from this group, I think: there's a lot of interesting detail in the full-size view, and it's a new color for these transmitted light pictures, kinda.

Anthurium andraeanum 'Pacora,' spathe. This didn't work out at all like I wanted. It might look a little better in full size.

Alternanthera cv. 'Partytime.' Interesting colors, though no individual leaf is all that impressive on its own: you sort of have to see the whole plant at once.

Solenostemon scutellarioides 'Splish Splash.' I've become somewhat disillusioned with coleus lately: I kept one indoors for over a year, and it didn't seem so terrible, though it was kind of leggy. Then I went kind of nuts buying them, discovered I didn't have anywhere to plant them, and they've had to suffer outdoors in tiny pots or inside without enough light. I'm not sure whether I'm going to try to keep them going through the winter or not: I know it's possible, but it's questionable whether this would be worth the trouble, when coleus is so easy to get in the spring. If I do keep some, 'Splish Splash' is likely to be one of the ones I keep.

Personal-ish: House

Yesterday the husband closed on a house in another town (not Iowa City, though relatively nearby), which we will be moving into at some point. I've never owned a house before,¹ which was, I thought, a pretty good reason not to be into outdoor plants, so now we're going to find out if I really think tropical plants are superior, or if I was only saying that because I couldn't have any temperate-zone plants.

Obviously the blog is going to suffer a little bit in the short term; although the husband has already rented a storage unit in said town, and has been moving stuff into it for about a month now (he's a glass-half-full kind of person; he's thought the deal was going to go through for a lot longer than I have), there's an awful lot to move, and of course I've been busy enough with work and the plants and the blog and whatever else it is I do, so my stuff is a lot less, er, dealt with than his.

Sempervivum 'Red Beauty.'
Exactly how much the blog is going to suffer is yet to be determined; I'll let you know.

As for the gardening: as best as I can tell (I've only actually seen the place once, and that was at night), the yard is mostly sun. It's basically a long thin strip that extends west from the house. There's a tree at the far end, and there will be a fence on the north and south sides of the property, but there's not really anything else for shade.

Portulaca 'Tequila Mix.' It's only just getting started now; it'll be more awe-inspiring later.
I've already bought some plants for the yard (The glass is occasionally half-full for me, too -- particularly when optimism means I can buy plants): so far we have a whole flat of Portulaca grandiflora 'Tequila Mix' (moss rose), because it's the best annual ever,² a Lantana camara 'Rose Glow Improved,' because I have positive associations with it now, a smallish pot of strawberries (Fragaria 'Fort Laramie'),³ a Sempervivum 'Red Beauty,'⁴ Lysimachia 'Goldilocks,' and I have some 'Quarterback' coleus⁵ from last spring that I kept as a houseplant, as well as brand-new-this-year 'Kingswood Torch,' 'Glennis,' 'Peter Wonder,' 'Splish Splash,' and possibly others I'm failing to remember. I like coleus. The coleus won't necessarily end up outside. In fact, I have no idea what I'm going to be doing with most of this stuff. To begin with, I'm just buying the plants I like, and we'll see how that goes, and we'll worry about having some kind of coherent plan next year. This year, we're just trying out the outdoor gardening thing to see if it's any fun. I've been told it is, but I remain skeptical.

There are perennials I like too (Lysimachia is supposed to be a perennial here.), but I don't know any of them terribly well, and most of the ones I do know somewhat and like okay are shade-lovers that I don't think will work that well for this situation. Shrubs I know basically not at all, and trees are not a good idea, I think, because we may want to put up a greenhouse in the back someday, and planting trees and shading the whole back yard could make a greenhouse kinda useless. Also it's not that big of a yard anyway.

Lysimachia 'Goldilocks,' in extra-dramatic lighting.
I'd also really like to find something for the lawn besides grass. I mean, the grass that's there already is fine and all, but mowing, weeding, spraying, watering, etc. all seem like really dumb ways to spend one's time. I hear there are other things that can be used instead, but I've seen very little about what, specifically, or how one goes about replacing grass. Anybody know any good references?

Pictures of house and lawn to follow . . . when I get around to it. The husband reports that there are Hostas.

-

¹ Technically, I still don't, since the whole deal has gone through under the husband's name, but I think he's going to let me live there anyway.
² So long as the rabbits don't eat it, which Kim tells me they like to do. I believe her exact words were "rabbit candy." Worrisome, but I'm still going to try.
³ (We had NOID strawberries in the back yard when I was a kid. I went ahead and bought the 'Fort Laramies' already because it looked like we were in danger of selling out of strawberries before the house thing went through. Strawberries are all but flying out the door this year.)
⁴ My good grandmother had Sempervivums outside her front door. (Like some people, I had a good grandmother and an evil grandmother, both of whom were into plants. Evil grandma went for ornamentals, irises and clematis and snapdragons and tulips and so forth, with only a few vegetables. Good grandma had less time on her hands, so she went more for vegetables, with only a few ornamentals. Both of them had houseplants: evil grandma probably deserves most of the credit -- or blame -- for my interest in them. By most measures, I take more after evil grandma than after good grandma.)
⁵ (Solenostemon scutellarioides)

Random plant event: Fragaria x 'Fort Laramie' flowers

This picture is a couple weeks old; most if not all of the strawberries at work have already moved on to fruiting, though the fruits in question are still very tiny and green.