So exciting that we finished transplanting our strawberries to the field this past week but will have to wait a good long time before we will hopefully indulge into some incredibly sweet berries.
What does it take to transplant strawberries?
First we sanitize our landscape plastic, which is a weed barrier, using a mild bleach solution. This requires us to pressure wash the plastic to remove dirt and debris so that the bleach comes in good contact with the plastic.
Meanwhile, while one is sanitizing the plastic, others of us (usually Carl) is preparing the beds for strawberries. We like for the soil to be loose, which is accomplished using a tractor mounted cultivator and running it through the field, mostly so the transplants have an easier time putting down good roots and becoming healthy plants to survive our cold winter.
After loosening the soil, we amend with Harmony Fertilizer, using our rotovator to make the beds all the while working the fertilizer into the soil. Once the beds are rotovated, we use our hiller (and reversing the discs), to make trenches so that we can secure the black landscape plastic to the soil.
Finally, after the beds are prepared and drip tape has been laid, we carefully hand transplant roughly 2,500 plants into the soil.
Carl using our hiller, with the discs reversed, made trenches used to secure the landscape plastic to the earth so the wind doesn’t carry it away.
After the beds are prepared, and the trenches made with our hiller we place down drip tape. Each year we drip irrigate about an acre of crops. A photograph of me actually working! I am pulling out the drip tape, which is then centered in the bed, using soil to hold it in place until the black landscape plastic is secured.
We unroll our landscape fabric onto the bed, then we crawl along the bed, pushing dirt onto the edges of the plastic. This prevents the plastic from ending up in the trees during wind gusts. It takes about an hour for two people to cover a 300 foot long bed. The landscape fabric prevents weeds from overtaking our strawberry crop and we couldn’t grow strawberries without some means of preventing weeds. This photograph shows Carl securing the landscape fabric with dirt.
Our strawberry plants ready for transplanting! These are one of the few crops that we purchase transplants. Most plants we start from seed just to be sure we have organic and the best and healthiest transplants available.
Me standing next to a flat of strawberry plants that have been laid out next to their holes and ready to be transplanted into the soil.
A strawberry plant that has been transplanted.
About a third of our strawberry crop transplanted.
Carls first fire in the wood stove. It was finally cool enough to burn a fire but we need to figure out the damper system on the stove because it is not burning a very hot fire.
