Strawberry Season

Yesterdays picking from the strawberry patch totaled up to 8 gallons. The patch is approximately 50 by 25 or 1250 square feet. The plants are all second year mothers and their daughters. The rain we finally got last week really made a difference, the berries are much larger  than they had been. Ann has already made 30 pints of strawberry jam and also dried some berries from previous pickings. She is going to make more jam and will make fruit leather from some of these. We will take a few gallons along to the Wild Food Summit we are attending later this week. Certainly not a wild food but every one brings a dish to pass for the first nights meal and we thought strawberries and fresh cream would make a great dessert. We have been eating our fill for about two weeks now and should get at least two more big pickings from this patch. At current you-pick prices our patch has produced about $350 worth of berries so far this year. That is at non-organic prices. Most strawberries are not organic because strawberry plants don't do well if the weeds are not kept out and the only way to do that organically is to pull them by hand. Ann spends several hours a week keeping our patch weed free.
Here is a admittedly fuzzy pic of a fuzzy visitor we had last week. I took the pic through the window screen so it didn't come out very clear. He had one messed up ear. He was not terribly worried about us talking only 30 feet away so I hope he doesn't turn into a problem bear. We will keep anything he might consider food put up so he does not develop a habit of visiting us! He is probably a cub from last year, about 90-100 pounds I'd guess.