fruits of my labour

Waiting for strawberries to ripen....

waiting, waiting.....hurrrrrry up....

almost.....

YaaaaHOOOOO! Red strawberries at Summer Solstice.

This is my strawberry patch. Two boxes are June bearing varieties and the other two are Everbearing. When I first planted the strawberries, this spot was outside the garden fence where the deer roam. I didn't want to take up all this space inside the garden fence so I thought I could be clever and grow the strawberries in these boxes with wood and wire mesh frames placed on top of the boxes to protect from deer, raccoons, birds, mice, etc, etc. It kind of worked, for a while, but after a couple of years the deer began to stand on top of the frames and push the mesh in and eat the strawberry leaves. Then one day last year I saw a raccoon pulling the mesh back with her little hands to get at the berries inside.
This year, we expanded the fenced area to include this spot so now I get to take the wire mesh frames off the top of the boxes and good thing too since the berry plants really want to grow much taller than the top of the boxes.
Turns out I learned that these boxes are just not a very good idea.....mostly because the plants don't get enough light and sun from the sides and ideally, they should get more air circulation to discourage the mould (botrytis) that we are so susceptible to here on the coast.
This year, after the berries are all harvested, I'll be moving my strawberry beds to another area and taking these boxes out of here. These plants have been here for 4 years so it's time to renovate the beds anyway. I'll start new plants from the runners that they'll be sending out soon to plant somewhere else and this area will become 2 new 40' rows with low tunnels for winter greens growing and for getting some crops off to an earlier start in the spring....