Since our vegetable garden was a dismal failure last year, we decided to skip the cucumbers and lettuce and zucchini this year. Instead, we opted to plant blueberry bushes, blackberries, and strawberries. The first challenge was finding the plants. We trekked to Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, K-Mart and other places with garden centers. Finally, we found some strawberry plants at Marden’s, a discount store. At $2.99, they seemed a bargain compared to the $10 strawberry plants we saw at another place.
Let’s get 10, I said, but my husband suggested getting four of the skimpy looking plants and continue our search. Later we did buy the robust looking $10 plant. Our reasoning was there were actually four plants in the gallon pot so we could divide it.
Today I started planting the eight plants. When I opened the box for the skimpy plants, it revealed ten bare-root plants in each box. Suddenly I had 44 plants to plant. Feeling a little overwhelmed, I tucked strawberry plants into every nook of the garden.
Hopefully, they will thrive in the somewhat sandy soil we have. Since we already had a strawberry patch of about 20 plants, next spring we may have to hold a strawberry festival for all our friends.
Virginia Allain 