Homeschool Garden Club - Strawberry Squirrels

We returned back to learning, last week, after a cold and wet half term. Which has been to the Homeschool Garden Club's advantage - we were worried the strawberries would ripen while everyone was away. Fortunately, nature has been kind to us and they did not. The strawberries have started to turn red this on the Monday we returned, which is just as well.

However, it appears to me that that most red ripe strawberries did not make into the bowls let alone the kitchen to be washed. Hmmmmmm! I wonder where they went?

I do have a tale to tell regarding the strawberries. I came down in the morning to find Mr. Squirrel sitting on one of the home schoolers pots, his two squirrel paws around a big ripe strawberry, licking his lips. He looked up, saw me, shrugged his shoulders and darted off in the direction of the fence. On top of that very fence, sat Mrs Squirrel eating a green strawberry. She just looked at me and went on eating. They both scarpered once I stepped outside and shouted at them.

Can you spot the one that Mr Squirrel was chopping on?

We are now picking the strawberries every day to make sure we get to eat them. So if you missed the Homeschool Garden Club you can pop in and pick a few before Mr and Mrs Squirrel return. The strawberries are not ripening all at once as we have 5 different varieties, so we are managing to pick a large breakfast bowlful a day. With luck the Homeschool Garden Club learners will have a harvest of strawberries for the whole month of June.

We also picked the almost-there red strawberries, so the birds and squirrels in particular don't get them. These did make it to the kitchen and we will be ripening them off by putting them with some bananas. Many ripening fruits produce hydrocarbon gas ethylene as they ripen, which then triggers off more ripening in the fruit around it. Bananas are especially useful as they are very productive source of this gas, so putting them in with the strawberries will finishing ripening the strawberries up. We have found that two bananas will ripen a breakfast size bowl of strawberries over the course of the morning.

We have given a 1kg of the strawberries to the Orchard Training Homeschool Cookery Club to use for jam making.

The Homeschool Cookery Club also used them to make strawberry scones. These were made by dehydrating some strawberries first and using them in the scone dough.

Finally, the Orchard Training Homeschool Cookery Club made strawberry coulis, this will be frozen in to ice cube size portions so it can be used later. Then they tried it with quark and plain Greek yogurt and thick plain Greek yoghurt. One thing that was noticed by everyone is just how different it tasted to compared to shop bought yoghurt. Two things stood out 1) a whole lot less sugar and the 2) the taste of the strawberries.