Why I Oughta...

Last year, I planted ten tiny bare root strawberry plants in containers and placed the two containers outside of our kitchen windows.  I didn't end up getting any fruit and when looking at the containers at the end of the year, it seemed that they were mostly dead and weren't going to come back this Spring.  I took them off to the compost bin earlier this Spring and moved on. But this past weekend, Nat asked me if I could move a strawberry plant that was growing in and around some ornamental grasses.  What strawberry plant, I asked?  And she pointed me to this one.  Turns out, we have a volunteer Strawberry plant that is coming up and flowering.  What a nice surprise, right?  I *do* need to move this, but I'm thinking I should wait for it to go through one season of throwing off whatever tiny berries it might throw off this season, then move it.  This post says to wait until August : If you already have an established bed, you should gen...

Back at the end of June, I posted a photo of the bounty that we took out of a yard in Downers Grove ahead of their teardown  that someone we're close to was undertaking.  (We didn't just glom on to the plants!  We were invited!)  Along with the hostas and peonoies and irises, I also grabbed a ratty-looking Raspberry plant.  Or at least, I was pretty sure it *was* a Raspberry plant.  I stuck it in the back of our property and promptly forgot about it.  Fast forward to this week and here's two different evening harvests.  Not a ton of berries, but after the transplant shock, I'm surprised we got any at all.  Not to mention getting scarfed up by the critters that run through our yard on a regular basis.  There are a few dozen more emerging/white-ish berries that will ripen soon, too.  So we'll be at it for a while it seems.  But, with just one plant, we'll never be in a position to fill pint after pint like some folks. Li...