Come Grow With Us: Strawberries, anyone?

I spent my evening washing, hulling, and bagging strawberries. Stopping for mozarella string cheese, I hit the local "buy it low" grocery store last night and found them as the loss leader for $1 a pound and couldn't resist...filled my shopping cart with strawberries and blackberries. Three hours and at least a thousand berries later, ( I should have snapped a photo!) I have two freezer shelves full of quart sized freezer bags and several batches of strawberry freezer jam chillin'! Low carb, low sugar, and full of antioxidants and flavor . . . I guess you could say I really like berries!

Some of you have asked me how you do a plant that doesn't start from seed in the AG. So I'm going to show you plant propogation or "cloning", as last week I also started an Aerogarden full of strawberry plants.

I don't have a clue how long it will take to get a thousand berries. . . I'll let you know!

(I did find out that one of our fellow Aergardeners, Bobbie, picked over 300 Mega Cherry Tomatoes from her AG7 in the 14 months her plants produced before they peetered out.
She quit keeping track after three hundred.)

So, we'll see! I planted bare root strawberries from my local nursery, the sweet "Albion" variety that is ever bearing. I didn't want plants to bear for a few weeks and then be dormant for months. I kept them healthy under the borrowed grow lights until my "Grow Anything" paraphernalia arrived.

Gently rinse the soil from the root

This kit comes with blank peat sponges and the plastic pods, and evern little donut shaped rings you can place over the pod if you are growing from seed so you can write on date planted and variety. These are "blanks". You won't have room to use those with the bulky stems here.

First, gently wash the roots under slightly cool water until you wash away the dirt. You can also swish them in a bowl of clean water to dislodge the soil.

I'll warn you: Be careful! Those stems break really easily!
I ruined a few starts by not holding them gently enough.

Choose 7 sturdy plants with the most leaf nodes;
as the leaf is the solar power cell charger.