It is snowing and we are expecting over seven inches today! What do I have on my mind? Planting Strawberries. Before we know it, the snow will be thawed and spring will be bringing us sunshine and flowers. I know it is hard to imagine while shoveling your car out but trust me It is right around the corner.
Unlike our pumpkins or sweet corn our strawberries are planted as a plant not a seed. We order our strawberry plants from Nourse Farms in Massachusetts. We put the order in December!!! While many you are making their holiday shopping list, we are preparing our strawberry plant list! The plants are delivered to our strawberry farm in Sturgeon Bay in April. They come frozen! Here in Wisconsin frozen is normal! A frozen plant is in dormancy. We keep the plants frozen until we are ready to plant. Looking out the window, it doesn't look like anytime soon. When the ground is thawed, we pull the plants from the freezer and get working.
The plants are planted about a foot apart. Throughout the year smaller plants will grow off called runners. In fall when the wind turns cold, we cover the all of our strawberry plants with straw. Eventually they freeze, go into dormancy and await the spring as we do. A year after first planting, we start to have big juicy strawberries to share with community! Nothing beats a Door County Strawberry from the family farm!
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