Strawberry Season

When to thin carrots? When is my basil going to grow? When should I plant another pea crop? WHEN IS IT GOING TO STOP RAINING?
My word! It's been raining for days!

Yesterday, I was up at 4:30 with our little Dingo, (term of endearment and part of her name; Dingo Rose) and began weeding as soon as the sun hit the sky. The last week was a bit nuts. The gardens and paths were getting out of control.
To do list:

• weed pumpkin patch,
• weed squash patch,
• tend the sitting area (mow, weed fencing, tie up morning glories and nasturtiums)
• weed paths,
• mow paths,
• weed partition area,
• weed everywhere!
• plant painted daisy starts
• plant cupids dart starts
• plant rutabagas
• plant seed carrots
• rip out squash bed infested with aphids in greenhouse
• plant table 3 in greenhouse with culinary herbs
• It's Strawberry Season

A wonderful older couple sent us to some folks they know (the Orffs), about 30 minutes away, who have quite a large strawberry field. The Orffs told us that it wasn't very good picking, what with no rain, the berries were sparse and small. John and I found the first day picking to be rewarding. Lots of berries, we thought. If this was a bad year, what do the berries look like on a good year? Then the rain came. And we went picking, again.

The first ones we picked we sold half of, which is fine. I sat on the front lawn, because IT WAS DRY, and picked through the berries, separating the going mushy from the good ones. The going mushy were zip locked , frozen and will be made into jam when my mother in law comes to visit in August. No loss there. The remainder were quarted up and sold.

66 quarts were picked Friday morning and were sold by Saturday 9:30 a.m. Rain means better berries and a longer berry season.
Still, I'm looking forward to warm sunny days.