Homeschool Garden Club – Strawberries

The strawberry session has started and we are excited as we have already pulled off 2kg of fruit this week.

Last year we had lots of baby strawberry plants. The baby strawberry plants than went out to our Horsell, Stanwell, Ashford and Staines learners in early spring. We had pinned down the stems, let the plants grow on, sniped the little leader tendril and then dug them up and shared them out. We had a lot of baby strawberries plants to share. These have then be loving grown on.

Home grown strawberries are really great fun to grow and we think they taste better because they are sun warmed. There is less than a few minutes from picking to mouth time! Theses are not making it to the kitchen. In fact water is being taken out to wash them on the spot.

They easy to grow in the ground. The ones in the containers need extra watering but otherwise we have left them alone.

There are different types of strawberries and we have planted all three types here in the homeschool garden.

Summer-fruiting strawberries – these have large fruits and a heavy crop over a few

weeks. These have started to give a harvest this week.

Perpetual strawberry plants - these have small fruits, from late May to early autumn. Some of these are still in flower here at the Orchard Training Homeschool Garden Club, as our spring has been a bit cool this year.

Wild strawberries are great for bee and pollinator insects and they grow well under other

plants like apple trees. Ours are planted under the Egremont Russet (brown rough skinned) apple tree. We have a lot of little tiny strawberries here that are not quite red. Keen eyes are, however, monitoring the situation as wild strawberries are a new concept. Many of our learners have had the experience of picking strawberries at the Pick-Your-Own but never seen them in woodlands. They tell me they wouldn't have picked them, if they had, incase they were poisonous - so it is lovely to be able to try some - very safe ones - homeschool grown ones.

Last year, we made strawberry jam, which was absolutely better than the shop bought jam. One of our Horsell learners made the best ever tasted strawberry jam, which was much admired.

Next week is Strawberry Shortcake Day and we are celebrating this with either shortcake or scones. We will be baking in the Orchard Training Cookery Club and serving with low-fat greek yoghurt. We will slice the strawberries, sprinkled with a little sugar, to make them all juicy.